


Dreaming Through the Dark

by kassandra_divina_trevelyan



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Dreams vs. Reality, Dreamscapes, Dreamsharing, F/M, High Fantasy, Lucid Dreaming, Minor Character Death, Non-Graphic Violence, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25376485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kassandra_divina_trevelyan/pseuds/kassandra_divina_trevelyan
Summary: Ever since her dad's death a month ago, Helena Nepheros has experienced a strange series of lucid dreams where she roams about a fantasy world threatened by a mad king. The only thing powerful enough to defeat the evil is Lightbringer, a legendary sword housing a heavenly deity's spirit and forged from a falling star. Armed with nothing but her wits and accompanied by a man known only as "The Captain", Helena must discover and protect the lost sword before the land is plunged into darkness forever.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Revelations of the Dreamer

**Author's Note:**

> FOLLOW ME @queen-kass-the-writer ON TUMBLR FOR MORE CONTENT // PLEASE ENJOY!!
> 
> Main Characters:   
> -Helena Nepheros/Solstice   
> -Steve Rogers/The Captain  
> -King Lysias/Grimsbane   
> -Natasha/ The Widow  
> -Wanda / The Red Witch   
> -Tony Stark / The Man of Iron  
> -Clint Barton / Hawk’s Eye   
> -Sam Wilson / Falcon Red  
> -James Barnes / The Winter’s Soldier

Dreams were funny things.

Some people dreamed about falling, others dreamed about romance with people they wanted in the deep of their heart, and some dreamed of nothing more than a cold embrace of darkness carrying them between awake and unconsciousness. Dreams were fickle, unpredictable, and often vanished when returning to the waking world. Dreams were escapes, and safe havens, homes for the weary. But for Helena Nepheros, dreams were something else entirely.

_Eyes open_

Helena laid flat on her back, lost among the warmth and comfort of the bed—one she knew wasn’t the one she owned in her rundown apartment. A simple scan of the ceiling above her confirmed that she was no longer in her room. Instead, she was in the “other place” as she described it. This wasn’t her apartment, her bed, or even real.

She kicked off the sheets from around her legs, feeling entangled and trapped by this figment of her imagination. Suddenly, it became hard for her to breathe. She scrambled to her feet and raced across the hardwood floors, cool to the touch against her bare feet. She needed to see what she had been too afraid to. Forcing herself to flee from the protection of the covers as she had before, Helena searched for a mirror.

She swore she saw one glinting from inside the cracked open lid of a music box settled on the top of the dusty bookshelf. Helena approached the massive, old wooden bookcase and restlessly hopped on the tips of her toes, attempting to grab the music box just out of her reach. Eventually, she managed to inch the ornate and unpolished silver box into her waiting hands, giving a victorious cry.

She pushed open the lid for the reflective mirror and admired herself, seeing that she looked the same. To her relief, nothing changed about her. There was the same medium brown hair in a messy ponytail, the same vibrant blue eyes she shared with her father, the same rosy cheeks that painted her as naïve and unassuming by the ordinary stranger—a porcelain doll despite having the slightest of Mediterranean tan within her.

She wished she knew what was going on.

Helena expected the untimely, tragic passing of her father would leave some lasting effects, but not like this. She assumed there would be a grieving period she would never get over and the memories of her beloved father would sting with his loss. She expected to cry on anniversaries or holidays and whatnot. But nothing could prepare her for this. She spent a whole month waking up in the strange bed, in a world she swore felt real enough to exist outside her imagination. She would end up in the same bed, waking up the same way, and the cycle repeated each night when she laid her head down to rest.

She thought she might be going insane. During breaks at the hospital, she would search up lucid dreaming or reoccurring dreams or if there was something fundamentally wrong with her. Was it out of grief or a coping mechanism? Helena hardly knew.

An entire month passed and Helena still had no clue what was happening, let alone what to do about it. She never left the bed while in this alternate world, but things were bound for change. Since that milestone came and went, Helena finally developed enough courage to venture outside the four walls she called her home away from home. She knew her home resided on the outskirts and in the slums of the town, which always sounded like the hustle and bustle of activity for hours on end. She needed some answers and figured that the outside would give her what she needed.

Grabbing a cloak from off the wooden peg built into the wall, Helena ran her fingers through the coarse material as she slipped the garment over her shoulders. The cloak was made for a bigger person, likely a male, but it would do for then. Helena reached for the door and before she could hesitate or hold back, she threw the door open and stepped out into the town square. Helena stepped out into the cobbled streets and prayed that she might blend in with the simple getup she wore and the cloak.

Her eyes darted from side to side, observing the oddly beautiful town. The buildings were simple yet homey, inviting to the eye in a variety of bright colors. People greeted each other with kindly waves and the shouting of names from across the town square up ahead. Helena took in the market stalls with so much to see, from fruits and baked goods to books and swords.

“Wow,” Helena whispered under her breath as she moved along through the town. In the meanwhile, some townsfolk noticed the beautiful but unfamiliar young woman strolling through the stalls and toward the town square. Many of them had never seen her before and the sight of a newcomer struck them as odd. It was a small township at the base of the kingdom; people talked and rumors were frequent. Some found it strange that someone new arrived without any wind of her settlement or who she was. However, no one approached Helena or decided to question her about her identity, seeing her peaceful demeanor and quiet fascination with her surroundings as non-threatening. Helena knew there were eyes on her as she could feel them as she passed by.

 _“She must be new,”_ a sentiment she overheard more than once. Although she knew some were taking notice of her and scratching their heads, she thought that most were unaware of her presence and she would be content with that. Helena entered the plaza and she noted buildings such as an apothecary, a library, a dressmaker, and… a tavern! If Helena was a betting woman, she would guess that a tavern would be an excellent place to pursue relevant information about this dream. She read enough fantasy books to know all the gossip went down at the tavern where liquor flowed and lips were loosened, for a price.

Helena wandered around town until she spotted an unassuming, wood and brick building tucked into the shops with a sign of gold reading “Stark Tavern.” Pushing open the door, Helena pushed off her hood from her face and stepped inside, largely ignoring the people staring at her. Weren’t they ever taught that it was rude to stare? She flounced over to an empty table nearest the bar and gracefully seated herself, watching the inquisitive eyes returning to their business.

Now, she could sit and listen.

“Did you hear about Europa’s daughter sneaking around with the town blacksmith-” _Pass. Boring gossip between old spinsters getting in business not belonging to them._

“My dad wants me to follow in his footsteps as a livestock farmer, but that is so boring-” _Complaining about work prospects. Not Helena’s interest at the moment._

“There has still been no word about Gryphon. A month has passed, Minette! Do you think he could have-?” “We can only hope he survived. For now, he is missing, but Midgard needs our brave adventure.” Helena’s _interest piqued at the mention of Gryphon, swearing she heard snippets of conversations from her stroll through town speaking of the same man. Who was this adventurer of which everyone spoke so highly of? Another mystery for Helena to solve on top of why she was here, in this realm._

Helena turned her head away from the patrons when the bell of the tavern rang out and a woman with dark hair, fair complexion, and a deep red dress walked into the tavern. She made a beeline for the bar and some patrons made verbal greetings as she passed.

“What’ll it be, Red?” The bartender inquired with a smile, warm with familiarity and friendliness. Helena guessed that they know each other well, possibly close friends from the greeting alone. The woman in red stood instead of seating herself at the bar.

“Give me the usual, Pepper: Murder by Roses.” The woman in red ordered, but before the bartender could leave to fill her order, she slapped the bar’s counter twice in quick succession. The two women made eye contact and the bartender smiled placidly.

“Underneath the grace of peace, a new path will be found where doors are scarce,” The bartender replied cryptically and Helena watched the woman in a dark red dress smile, pass the bartender a gold coin, and vanish to a hallway across the room before disappearing entirely from view. Helena observed the same phenomenon at least three more times where patrons would approach the bar, order a ‘Murder by Roses,’ and slap twice on the counter. The bartender would respond with the same awkward riddle and point them to a hallway. From there, Helena had no clue what happened, but she planned on finding out. So, she walked up to the bar and her arrival was noticed by the bartender, who gave her a smile.

“What can I do for you?” The bartender inquired in a pleasant greeting, brushing her hands off on her dress’ skirt. An older blonde, she appeared kindly and helpful to strangers—more so than the other residents of the town who liked staring a little too much.

“I’d like to order a ‘Murder by Roses’ please,” Helena replied and she rested her hand on the counter, where she gave two inconspicuous taps to the countertop. Pepper, the bartender, nodded understandingly and she glanced toward the hallway. That, Helena knew, meant she was being guided to the next step.

“Underneath the grace of peace, a new path will be found where doors are scarce,” With Pepper’s blessing, Helena vacated her seat and headed to the hallway. She acted collected as not to draw unnecessary attention to herself as she entered the hall. She saw nothing of note among the blank walls as she walked along. Her eyes observed her surroundings for a clue of what to do next when she reached the dead-end where a door should be as evidenced by the archway carved into the brick wall. Helena’s eyes glanced up at the arch when the gleaming gold metalwork caught her eye. She inched closed and narrowed her eyes, looking at the goldwork when she realized what it symbolized: an olive branch. Olive branches were symbols of peace, which tied back to the riddle. Helena racked her brain for the most outlandish way to make a doorway appear from a wall and, on a hunch, started pressing against the bricks within her reach, Halfway down and on the right side, she pressed on that gave a click and lo and behold a door opened from the inside. The new door revealed a staircase leading up to an attic and Helena decided to check it out.

She walked up the stairs as the door closed behind her, leaving Helena shut-in for the moment. She bit down on her lip and moved in undisrupted silence, not wanting to give herself away to whoever might hear. She climbed the stairs and ended up in a narrow hallway with a door leading to a secret room. Helena walked up to the door and knelt next to it. She pressed her ear to the door and listened to the other side, where she heard voices.

“-to discuss the current issues facing the citizens of Midgard at the hands of King Lysias. What new information do we have?” A deep, confident voice presided over the silence from what little Helena caught due to her delayed start. Several voices chimed in with their declarations of news or information.

“Midgard? That- what is going on?” Helena mumbled, quite confused, and she pressed her ear up against the door. There was a memory tugging at her, but she would mull over the painful familiarity later. She

“Another three members of the palace staff have gone missing over the last two weeks!” The first voice, a female one, cried out and the accent made Helena recognize her as the woman in red from the bar.

“That and the food shortages are running rampant, especially among the farmers. As a result, market prices are increasing and out of people’s affordability.” A second female voice added to the urgency of the first, although she sounded calmer and more detached from the situation. 

“We are sitting idly by and the people are suffering. We are no closer to stepping in and intervening than we were months ago!” A second male voice exclaimed, and his slight accusation spurred a clashing of voices and opinions blending together that made it impossible for Helena to distinguish who was who or figure out what was going on.

“One thing at a time. I know these injustices infuriate the people of Midgard and us, but we cannot afford to descend into chaos. We are Midgard’s last hope, her chance for liberation from underneath a tyrant’s thumb.” One voice rose above the chatter and commanded the room with power Helena could feel through the door. She wondered if this was the leader of the ragtag group of resistance fighters.

“The Captain is right,” A new male voice chimed in, hoping to quell the dissent among the group and get things back on track. Nothing would be done should the group lose sight of what is important or why they were there. They could split hairs later when starvation, riots in the streets, and the devastating loss of people’s livelihoods wasn’t imminent.

“I believe The Widow has more information from the palace,” The Captain, at least Helena assumed that was who spoke, informed and she pressed her ear closer. She was storing all this information and exposition in her mind, knowing that nothing would be too trivial. She needed to understand everything she could about this world, and something kept her rooted in the spot, not afraid of being caught eavesdropping.

“The latest rumor comes from inside the castle, from a trusted source,” The second female voice chimed back in, knowing and neutral compared to the thinly veiled disgust from some of the previous speakers. “Apparently, King Lysias has become hellbent on retrieving a mythical artifact that some historians dispute even exists. For what purpose, the larger court is unaware, and it is unknown to possibly the highest of Lysias’ advisors. These whisperings accompany the odd behavior he displayed as of late: refusing to leave his room, whispering to seemingly no one, forgoing sunlight… something is going on within the castle walls Lysias wishes to hide from the people.” Following the new revelation, several murmurs rose around the table, which was promptly silenced by what sounded like a firm hand against the table.

Helena insistently pressed her ear back to the wooden door with bated breath, hoping to gain more information about this king or his tyranny over the people of Midgard. She closed her eyes in concentration and waited for the conversation to reach her, but it never did. Instead, the world flickered in and out of focus and ambient noise around her muted. When her eyes opened again, she was lying in bed with her eyes staring at the ceiling and wrapped in the cheap heat blanket she bought since her heater crapped out during the freezing January in New York.

She sighed when blearily shutting off her alarm, knowing it to be 0530 Monday. She had work to attend to with her patients, who she loved dearly, but Helena knew that her mind would be elsewhere—in Midgard. 

* * *

Inside the guarded walls of ashen stone and through the halls of vibrant crimson walls laid the center of Midgard’s power: the throne room of King Lysias the Vengeful. There is where the reclusive usurper spent his time, drawn between there and shuttering himself inside his chambers with no light. The room around him was dark as the curtains were drawn and the only lighting came from the eerie illumination of candlelight chandeliers and the dying hopes of a people starved by their own king.

Lysias lounged on his throne, aimlessly twirling a dagger around in his hand and studying the glint of the blade under the candlelight. Shadows danced across the pallor of his face and the curve of the knife was wickedly sharp, second to the scathing smirk resting on his bluing lips. He didn’t know what was taking so long, but he was not a man who liked to be kept waiting.

As if on cue, the double doors of the throne room whooshed open with a hot gust of wind as two of his guardsmen strode forward with a sickly-looking man dragged between them. When reaching the foot of the dais where the throne resided, the guards threw the prisoner to the floor for their king to appraise. They found the old man, as ordered.

“My liege, we brought the prisoner per your request.” The guards reported to Lysias, who barely glanced away from the dagger or his sharpened, obsidian nails. He tilted his neck side to side, reveling in the uncomfortably grotesque cracks of his bones and how he caused the guards to squirm. He drew his eyes from the dagger, watching the man struggle to rise to his feet in boredom.

“Start speaking, worm, or I might consider carving your tongue out and feeding it to my hounds,” The seer, eyes of milk-white, stared into the obsidian glare of King Lysias with no fear of the hells promised within the darkness. He, however, could feel the ancient evil surrounding the room and pouring off the king in palpable waves. The king succumbed to a horrible monster, one meant to stay buried and locked away from the reach of ambitious humans with persuadable minds.

“My name is Rayner, Your Majesty,” Rayner corrected, but he winced when he felt something wet smack against his cheek. He feebly reached to his cheek and wiped it away. _Spit._

“I don’t care what your name is. Either you speak when I command you to, or I will resort to measures. Rest assured, I will pry the answers I seek from you, whether you wish it so or not. Make it easier for yourself and comply,” King Lysias scoffed disrespectfully while he watched Rayner fumble with the ground and balance. Pathetic. This was the alleged seer with wisdom beyond all his advisors? Lysias wondered if he discovered a fraud and not a wealth of foresight like he was promised. If so, today would be prime for an impromptu execution.

“You seek Solstice, the sword of legends, do you not?” Rayner questioned when he managed onto his feet without help or some semblance of sympathy from the guards. They did not pity a blind old seer, did they? Rayner felt the heat of Lysias’ gaze fixated on him and the anticipation of the king over his destiny.

“Yes, I do,” Lysias confirmed, waiting for Rayner to just get on with it. He was not a patient man, nor would he be given the opportunity to dally. He was wasting the king’s time and Lysias wasn’t much for mercy or forgiveness either.

“The sword does not open itself to those not worthy of it. If you were somehow to find it and destroy the blade, then your reign would remain unopposed for eternity. However, the blade remains hidden from even my sight and there are far greater challenges standing between you and the sword.” Rayner declared, skirting around the cryptic nature of prophecies or the theatrics of his usual readings. He sensed his life might depend on what the king heard and the urgency in which it left his lips.

“What such challenges do you speak of?” Lysias inquired, goading Rayner to elaborate with the uncertainty of whether the truth would result in his suffering. These days, Lysias acted irrationally and dragged around by his changing whims like a puppet on a string and manipulated by the maestro. He switched between rational and chaos without warning or indication, even within himself. He felt compelled by the voice whispering to him that he failed to question until he was already done.

“Two heroes shall stop at nothing to keep the sword protected. One is The Captain of the Resistance and the other is Gryphon’s secret daughter-” Rayner recalled and before he could continue, the sound of Lysias growling choked out his prophecy.

“Gryphon has a daughter?” Lysias nearly stammered but caught himself from sounding like a blubbering court jester. He pictured the smug smirk of that evasive bastard Gryphon, knowing that he had a daughter who would continue her father’s legacy of thwarting his rightful desires. She would not make a fool of him, Lysias swore. The voice inside his head, murky and ancient, angrily swirled around and chanted a flurry of curses. The little wench would pay the price for her father’s misgivings against the king with her life.

“One that has risen in his stead, yes,” Rayner explained and he could sense the displeasure of King Lysias. However, he knew that speaking the truth would be his only saving grace should the king turn on him. He wished to be let go and left unharmed, so he gave Lysias whatever information he had on this mysterious woman. He could see her face in his mind and she was unlike anything he had seen before, radiating power and light. “Her name remains hidden from my sight, though I can see her face. She is a beauty of renowned and a woman like her stands out in a crowd. Find her and you shall face no threat to destroying Solstice and claiming the land for yourself.” 

“Shall we arrest the Captain?” The guards asked of Lysias, wishing not to earn his displeasure by remaining idle or listless in their duties. Lysias snarled, baring his teeth.

“No, don’t waste your time on such an insignificant worm!” Lysias raged, infuriated by the promise of another obstacle. He mowed down dozens of thorns in his side for years on his quest to destroy Solstice and eliminate any challenge to his unchallenged reign. He would not let another upstart get in his way. His focus was on the girl, rather than The Captain. He knew all about the resistance’s growing audacity and its enigmatic leader. He believed “The Captain” to not be a singular individual, but several individuals sharing an alias. Therefore, his focus was the daughter—the wild card in his carefully waged war. “No, find the girl,” Lysias growled, curling his hand into a fist and ignoring the way the black veins throbbed on his neck out of rage. He could not believe that Gryphon, who vanished without a trace, delivered another thwarting of his plans through his offspring.

“And if we find her, my liege?” The guards inquired when sneaking glances between each other, dreading what their orders might entail. Another body was sure to make them sick to their stomach and the maids couldn’t keep scrubbing blood off the tile floors for much longer.

“She will be silenced by my hand. That wench’s father eluded me for decades and I shall not allow his kin to do the same. I shall end the line of these pesky heroes who rise up to defeat me since the beginning. No longer shall any of them stand in the way of my victory!” Lysias roared, but the guards were unsure whether their king was behind the words or the dark shadow hovering over him. Either way, they would never refuse Lysias’ orders and they would find the girl.

* * *

Upon returning to Midgard under cover of night, Helena knew she wanted to do something about what she overheard during the resistance meeting through the wall. The horrors the people of Midgard faced underneath a tyrannical king compelled her to do something, anything even, to help those. She didn’t know why she thought she could, but Helena wouldn’t give up before giving it a try. Quitting before giving her best shot was never in her character.

So, Helena decided to spend what limited time she had in Midgard on research in the small yet varied library of the bookshelf in her humble abode. She pulled all the books of the highest shelf first and knew that she had limited time to go through all of them. Therefore, she would be using the reading method that got her through nursing school as valedictorian: skimming for her life. She dropped the books onto her bed and she nestled herself into the mountain of pillows with the first book—a book written up on Midgardian legends.

“We’re looking for an unnamed artifact made to combat the darkness, no pressure or anything,” Helena sarcastically reminded herself when dusting off the spine and cover with a gentle brush of her hand. The frustration was out of character for her but warranted, given the circumstances, at least what Helena considered worthy. She flipped open to the table of contents and skimmed her finger down the list, mulling over each entry. Alphabetized and subtitled for ease of access, Helena found something of importance around the end of the list in the ‘S’ section. She ran her finger over the title ‘Solstice: The Spirit of Lightbringer.’

She flipped to the corresponding page number and something inside her head told her that Solstice might be a lead she should pursue. Helena propped the book’s spine to rest between her thighs while reading. When spotting the title matching at the top of the page, Helena sank into the pillows and began to read:

_In the earliest records of Midgard, the once prosperous kingdom was overshadowed by a growing darkness, which sought to rule over the people. Among these early settlers was a woman known as Solstice or “Sol” as dubbed by her eventual husband—a warrior of great renown. Rumors can neither confirm nor deny the validity of claims that she was not of human origin, but rather blessed and molded through divine hands as a demigod under the Pantheon._

_Under the leadership of Solstice, the settlers formed a kingdom known as Asgard and named Solstice their ruler. She married her champion, Ser Lightwood, and they reigned until the darkness came to the outskirts of their kingdom in the form of an army. The country was surrounded by all sides as the darkness encroached on Asgard. Ser Lightwood led the prepared forces to meet the dark army outside the city’s walls. From her balcony, Solstice watched while she prayed for a miracle from above._

_She witnessed horrific bloodshed, which claimed many lives and eventually that of her husband. Driven by grief, Solstice screamed at the heavens for vengeance and the heavens parted with their answer. A falling star careened down from the open skies and toward the castle, burning with a brilliant light. On the balcony, Solstice came face to face with a glowing sword of light and radiance and unfathomable power. In her hands was Lightbringer, a gift from the Gods and forged from the core of a falling star._

_Armed with Lightbringer, Solstice barged onto the field and threw herself into the fray of battle. She killed enemies with no sense of mercy and when she faced their leader, she knew that she wouldn’t escape with her life—but neither would her foe. An epic battle waged between opposing forces and Solstice landed the final blow that pierced through her and her opponent. She laid on the battlefield, gasping for her last breaths and she whispered her husband’s name before she faded. With the darkness defeated and those who were trapped under the influence now free, Asgard transformed its name to Midgard as a middle ground compromise and the merging of two kingdoms for prosperity. A new king was appointed from Solstice’s closest allies and kicked off a succession of benevolent leaders. There were rumors that the queen had given birth to a son in secrecy and passed the baby off to protect him should the worse come to pass, but there are no records to indicate such validity._

_As for Lightbringer, it vanished with Solstice’s death. The sword was lost from all records and rumored to be nothing more than a childhood fantasy. Those who acknowledge its existence as more than a fabrication or fiction postulate the theory that Solstice’s soul rests within the sword and awaits someone worthy to awaken her from her slumber._

“So, this sword was intended to ward off the darkness and creatures of sin? Sounds precisely the kind of weapon I would want to destroy if I was a tyrannical king. The rumors coming from the palace and the disappearance of the town’s hero around the same time are more than coincidence. Something is going on here, something sinister.” Helena remarked quietly into the open air but glanced around nervously like she expected someone or _something_ to overhear her.

Determined to figure out what ails plagued Midgard, Helena resumed her readings. She skimmed through a bestiary but tabbed some pages she considered reading at a later time. She picked up a Midgard mythology book and searched the pages for relevant information. Beyond mentions of Thor Odinson, a warrior of renowned who protected the land with his power over lightning, there was nothing in there needed or unknown to Helena. She jumped from book to book with little else gained from her search until she reached the last book.

She would hardly call it a book—more like a leather-bound journal. She ran her hands across the worn cover and took in the feeling of scratches left behind in the leather. She opened the book and studied the first page. Her eyes were drawn to the signature at the bottom of the page: Gryphon. Gryphon was the folk hero of Midgard, the one who vanished without so much as a trace or warning. If this was his journal, then what was it doing in this house? Could it be that this was Gryphon’s home? If that were true, then Helena knew that her entering this dream realm was no accident or figment of her imagination. The only way she might fill some of the puzzle pieces missing was to read through this journal. So, she cracked open the first page and dove in headfirst.

The first few pages established a regular pattern of describing an adventure he went on and the creatures he encountered along the way. While Helena read the entries, some vague sense of familiar pulled at her and it didn’t fully register until she reached the end of the current entry with how Gryphon signed off. 

_That’ll make an excellent story to tell my Helena. She did love hearing about Midgard and my adventures, although I changed the name to Ser Reynold Hayes._

“Wait a minute- Oh god!” Helena gasped and she nearly dropped the journal from her shaking hands. Ser Reynold Hayes the Valiant was a character that her father made up for bedtime stories about when she was a young girl, like 6 or 7. Helena swallowed thickly and she shook her head numbly, trying to reconcile how this might be explained away. “There is no way. I have to be imagining this or something.” She murmured while re-reading the entry, but the revelation spurred more details to come forward and she recognized this story. She looked at the following entries and knew those too as former bedtime stories. Helena desperately tried to ignore the signs, but her protests fell short when she realized that the timeline made too much sense. Her father died a month ago, which was the same amount of time Gryphon has mysteriously vanished. Helena was staring at the evidence in the face and knew that it was time to accept the truth that her father was Gryphon. Her father walked Midgard as she did now while he was alive and there was more to her coming here than coincidence; perhaps it was destiny, however foolish that sounded.

_Thus, brings my attention to a more pressing issue at hand: King Lysias. The influence of the Lost One grows stronger and I no longer believe Lysias is in control of his body, let alone his mind. The tragic revelation infers something far more sinister. Therefore, the kingdom of Midgard requires the return of his old foe in Solstice—the long-fabled and lost warrior spirit of Asgard’s first queen. Rumor posits that her essence lies within her sword Lightbringer and I believe that to be true. Historians cannot seem to locate a final resting place for the sword and those around me blindly trust the pervasive excuse that no such sword existed._

_But I know that is false, for I have found the sword. Its location is marked on the map I buried somewhere sacred and where no one shall ever find except for one person—my daughter. Her intelligence was never one I could fool-_

Helena read those words twice before a realization dawned on her. Her head snapped to the side and studied the empty bed she sat in. It was big enough for two. Childhood memories with her father resurfaced and flashed before her eyes, leading her to drop the journal and snatch up the smiled pillow resting beside her. She untucked the smile and stuck her hand into the casing, feeling around until she brushed against a folded piece of paper. She fished the paper out, shocked that her father recalled the silly tradition, and unfurled the paper. When she was a child, her father would retell her bedtime stories and she would open wake up to find notes “left” by the characters in the story tucked into her pillow the same way.

A way only she would know, which meant her father expected her to find her way to Midgard should he die.

Questions were raised, but they would have to wait. Helena unfolded the paper and her jaw dropped when she admired the meticulously drawn, detailed map left behind by her father. There were a scale and notes regarding which roads were safer than others and several pre-determined routes for a trip. Lightbringer was stashed in a secret burial tomb where Solstice’s earthly body materialized upon her death by magic. Her husband, Ser Lightwood, was one of the most powerful mages in the kingdom and that was unknown to the public. He created a safe place to protect her remains and her spirit. The tomb was located within The Severed Mountains, a mountain ranges hundreds—if not thousands—of miles outside of the kingdom and through an uncharted wilderness.

“I think this is what Midgard needs!” Helena lifted the journal into the air, and she scrambled up from the comfort of the bed. She replaced the books to their rightful spots on the shelf while keeping the journal out of the shelf. This book was full of information that no one else knew, making her a player with an advantage. She knew that she needed to tell someone and then she remembered the resistance fighters she eavesdropped on in Stark Tavern.

They were the only other ones aware of the inner workings of the palace (through spies no doubt) and held a vested interest in dethroning a monster. Their meetings were secret and between a few elite fighters—showing how seriously they took their duties. No one seemed any the wiser about when she disappeared in the bar and Helena would guess that neither they nor the guards of the king knew how the resistance was hiding in plain sight. The whole tactic was nothing short of genius and Helena knew how to get their attention. She would hand over the book and announce her relation to Gryphon, so long as she could help them with their movement. She would hopefully go in once she returned and could get someone to listen to her, however insane her story might seem. “Okay, so I go into the bar and order a Murder by Roses and slap on the counter twice. When encouraged to go to the back, I pick out the brick that reveals a secret passage underneath the gilded olive branch.” Helena recited under her breath and she racked her brain to make sure she wasn’t missing any steps. She knew her time in Midgard was coming to an end, sensing the beckoning of the real world stirring around her chest, but decided on her next move. She would be crashing a resistance meeting and with her journal, she would help them discover how to save Midgard from the cruelty of King Lysias. For once in her life, which she spent anxiously shying away from attention or trying to avoid being noticed, Helena felt compelled to do something.

She wished to be a hero like her father.

* * *

Another day passed before Helena returned to Midgard, triumphant and determined to give her newly acquired information onto the resistance fighters. She remembered one name from the unknown voices: The Captain. She believed they were likely to be the leader of the freedom fighters and therefore, getting this information to him became paramount.

So, Helena recovered the journal from the safe place she hid it for protection, retrieved her cloak from the peg (now knowing it belonged to her father), and donned the protective covering with the journal slipping into the interior’s hidden pocket. Helena pulled the hood over her head and tried her best to cover the lower half of her face as inconspicuously as possible, almost like she was coughing into her cloak. She vaguely recalled the way to the tavern but hardly considered that a worrisome point as the town seemed relatively small. She would find her way back, eventually.

She slipped out of her home and into the busy marketplace, not overwhelmed by the buzz of activity in the town streets. She assumed that kind of atmosphere was commonplace for Midgard and rolled with it. There was no time to admire the quaintness of the town as she needed to arrive at Stark Tavern. She barely made it a few feet before the sound of crinkling paper underfoot snagged her attention and she glanced down to see a flyer underneath her boots.

“What’s this?” Helena questioned as she squatted down and fetched the flyer from the cobblestone floor she walked upon. She turned the paper over, and her face transformed as pale as the sheet in her trembling hands. Staring back at her was a wanted poster with a printed bounty of five-hundred gold shillings, which Helena assumed was a deal not many would stick their nose at, and a near likeness of her face etched into the page. In a town like this where people were going hungry and their livelihoods were potentially at stake, five-hundred gold pieces would feed hungry mouths and all for turning in a stranger. Helena dropped the flyer and covered her face when she rose, not wanting to be identified with nowhere to run. She managed to evade the notice of the general public by keeping her head down, eyes on the floor, and face covered with the cloak.

Helena made vigilance her motto while she blended into the crowd of unsuspecting townsfolk, weaving through them and using their bodies as a shield to protect her. As she grew closer to the tavern, Helena refused to let up her hypervigilant actions or stop even when she entered the safety of the inside. She knew that most people would be going about their day, and therefore wouldn’t be looking for her. Helena actively avoided the occasional palace guard she would spot from a distance, knowing they would be on the hunt for her.

But she missed the way that a shopkeeper outside her “home” stared a little too long at her and connected the pieces in his mind of the identity of the wanted woman.

Entering Stark Tavern, Helena wasted no time approaching the bar where the same bartender from days ago cleaned out a chromium ale tankard with a worn rag and a placid smile. Pepper glanced up to see the same unnamed stranger standing before her with hood up and exceptionally kind eyes. Although she did seem jumpier than last time.

“How can I help you?” Pepper inquired kindly while setting the ale tankard down on the countertop, focusing on helping the paying customer with her needs.

“A Murder by Roses please,” Helena remarked while giving the counter the distinguishing double pat, her eyes meeting Pepper. Pepper nodded and she resumed cleaning the tankard with the intent to polish it from dull to sterling silver. However, her averted eyes were not to be mistaken for not paying attention to Helena.

“Underneath the grace of peace, a new path will be found where doors are scarce,” Pepper recited with a knowing glint in her eyes and a hum of repetitive exhaustion. Helena whispered out a thank-you before she gracefully moved through the small crowd packed into the tavern’s four rustic walls. She beelined for the dead-end of the hall and stood underneath the gilded olive branch into the carved wooden doorway to nowhere. She ran her fingers along the wall and pressed into the brick she recalled being false, confirmed by the click resulting from her touch. The doorway materialized from thin air and she slipped through.

Helena walked up the stairs, a sense of urgency in her movements and her heartbeat roaring in her ears like the early morning tide crashing up against the rocky cliffs. She headed to the end of the hallway where the single door waited for her and her, grabbing the knob in her shaking hand, pushed it open.

The inside of the room was sparsely decorated with the only defining feature being an oval table with chairs around the whole way. Standing at the head of the table was a man, tall and blonde… and extremely handsome. Helena swallowed thickly when taking in his chiseled jaw and golden blonde styled hair, but then he glanced up and noticed her.   
  
“Who are you?” He questioned sternly and Helena’s attention snapped to his startlingly blue eyes, which were fixated on her. He didn’t know who she was nor how she got back here, seeing as there was a specific ritual and leaks were a serious matter. Helena recognized his voice as belonging to the Captain—the man she sought.

“You are the Captain. I have some information that you need.” Helena replied in the calmest voice she could muster, given her tendency to come across meek or painfully shy. The Captain, clearly taken aback by her knowing him as his identity was well maintained, gave Helena a second glance when she pushed down her hood. His eyes flashed with recognition and thought to the flyers peppering the town with her face all over them. This young lady was a wanted woman and somehow uncovered their secret meeting location, which raised numerous questions.

“Well, what information would that be?” The Captain crossed his arms over his chest and Helena felt afraid, although unsure if the Captain was a threat to her safety. She reached into the cloak pocket and pulled out the journal—her father’s journal.

“This journal belongs to Gryphon, the adventurer. To make a long story short, he died a month ago and I found my way here to Midgard,” Helena held the journal up to the light and the Captain’s eyes followed it but returned to her eyes to determine where the truth lied. Her face showed no deceit, only the truth. Helena sucked in a deep breath before saying, “I know the artifact that King Lysias wants to find and I know where it is hidden.”

“You have my attention-” The Captain decided after a beat of tense silenced ensued between the two and his hardened look of distrust melted into something closer to intrigue. His eyes flickered to the journal and Helena held it out to him when an aggressive thump against the wall startled her. The Captain’s eyes narrowed and he glanced to the wall behind Helena. Another damn inspection? They were growing more frequent and he had a newcomer to worry about. He growled, “We have unwanted guests. Come with me!”

Helena could hardly protest as the Captain grabbed her by the hand and pulled her toward a towering bookshelf lined against the wall. The disruptive knock was designed by Tony and Pepper, the owners of the tavern, as a warning signal to inform about hostile guards. King Lysias scoured the town for the resistance movement and had his men conduct random searches of establishments with the hopes of breaking into a resistance meeting. So, the resistance had protocols in place and evaded capture for decades.

The Captain pulled out one of the books on the shelf and, to Helena’s amazement, that kicked off another chain reaction by revealing a hidden nook into the wall. There was a switch along the wall and the mechanism would close the shelf back up. The Captain brought Helena into the niche along with him, knowing that the spot was tight for two, but her life depended on them holding on. With both of them cleared, the Captain hit the switch along the wall and Helena watched the shelf close them into the nook. Helena and the Captain were dropped into the dark and both forced themselves to be silent. No noise echoed from them and they listened to the sound of heavy footsteps thundering up the creaking stairs and the door outside the hidden spot flying open behind a kick. There was incoherent yelling and the Captain felt his jaw clench—palace guards caused his blood to boil. Helena uncomfortably wriggled around in his arms and he understood her. Small, dark spaces were not the most enjoyable of places.

“There is no one here! It appears to be empty!” One guard exclaimed after several muffled grunts at the empty room. They, acting on a report from a shopkeeper in the square who directed them toward Stark Tavern, assumed they would discover the wanted wench to bring to King Lysias. A reward was pending should they deliver her to their liege for her well-deserved punishment. 

“The blasted shopkeeper claimed she came to the tavern. The damn girl escaped our grasp,” A second voice scoffed disgustedly, and the sound of a chair being kicked rattled through the small, echoing room. Helena flinched and her body started to tremble uncontrollably beyond her control, which caused the Captain to look at her in worry. His hands started rubbing soothing circles into what he assumed was her back to calm her.

“The damn bastard earned a beating for wasting our time. Back to the castle!” The third and angriest voice barked, and the trudging of heavy boots could be heard descending down the stairs in defeat. Neither the Captain nor Helena made a move to leave quite yet and counted the passing seconds until the Captain deemed the coast to be clear. He flipped the switch and the nook opened up once more, letting him and Helena tumble out. Both exchanged glances of understanding that their luck preserved them from being discovered.

“May I see the journal?” The Captain asked and Helena nodded wordlessly, giving him the journal to read over. She directed his attention to the marked pages with the most relevant information on Lightbringer. He read the pages with thorough concentration and a small part of him blessed the powers that be for delivering the answer to the people’s prayers. He glanced at the young woman standing before him nervously and he finally understood her hesitation. He saw the flyers searching for her and she risked her life to bring him the information. She was brave beyond what she even knew.

“Is this something helpful to your cause?” Helena meekly inquired, taking his silence as something less than acceptance but not quite a denial. In the presence of silence, her jittery mouth tended to jump the gun. The Captain glanced up from the journal with those baby blues that rendered Helena mostly mute, taking her in. Her hood had fallen off during the scuffle and revealed her regal features and soft, delicate visage. She was as fair as the dawn, bathed in brilliant colors and vibrant glow reminiscent of the rising sun.

“More than helpful,” The Captain replied and he held his hand out to the beautiful stranger bearing good tidings and a change of luck. Helena’s hand grazed his and their fingers met in the middle. The journal rested between their clasped grips and connected the two together. “What’s your name, miss?”

“Helena.” She informed and the Captain ran the name once, twice, three times in his head to link it onto the pretty face staring at him.

“Well, Helena, what do you think that we should do with this information or about the knowledge of Lightbringer? It sounds like a powerful weapon,” The Captain humbly requested her opinion, guessing that she would be a more expert voice on the matter. She was the daughter of Gryphon and privy to more knowledge than what was written in his journal, no doubt.

“I think there should be an expedition to find it and protect it. Otherwise, Lysias might uncover the location and decide to do away with the only thing stopping him from conquering what he desires most.” Helena remarked when she considered what her father would do. She grew up on stories of his exploits masked as those of a fictional hero, who she thought so highly of. Therefore, Helena was taking her guidance from her dearest dad and making him proud.

“I agree. Another question, Helena. You are a member of this resistance and your safety is of utmost importance to me. Is there a name I should call you by to preserve your identity?” The Captain inquired, quite compassionately. Helena was surprised he was so attentive and concerned about her feelings of involvement. 

“Call me Solstice or Sol, symbolic of the warrior queen and Midgard’s first royal.” Helena decided and something about the name called to her. Perhaps wishful thinking, but Helena hoped that attributing that name to herself would help in cultivating some kind of favor with fortune.

“Sol it is,” The Captain agreed with Helena and his lips twitched against the urge to give a small, comforting smile to Helena. Her story was one of the harrowing circumstances and he recognized that her presence before him meant the loss of one of Midgard’s greatest heroes. It was a tragedy to lose Gryphon, but his daughter proudly championed his legacy and would restore Midgard to the light. “The others should be here shortly for our meeting. We can present the information to them there and see what course of action we shall take.”

“Yes Captain,” Helena remarked and she tucked the journal back into her pocket. She accepted a seat beside the Captain while he read over several reports he revealed from his cloak. They were letters written between members of the resistance who spent some time undercover in the castle. They would be returning for that afternoon’s meeting. Soon, the Captain and Helena were joined by the other members of the resistance, who were glancing at Helena with confusion and looked to the Captain for answers as to who she was or why she was there. The Captain decided that she would be best suited to introduce herself to the others, giving her a chance to speak for herself instead of having him speak for her. She had a voice; she was capable of doing so.

“Good day, everyone. I expect that you have some questions about who I am or why I am here. My name is Sol and I am the daughter of Gryphon. I regret to inform you that my father has met an untimely end but that I am picking up where he left off.” Helena held nothing back and watched the faces of the resistance fighters turn crestfallen at the mention of her father’s passing. Seeing the impact he had on Midgard touched her deeply and made her all the more resolved to uphold that legacy.

“It turns out that Gryphon was uncovering the artifact that Lysias wishes to destroy,” The Captain chimed in and the expressions at the table morphed once again. Helena felt terrible for them at the emotional whiplash she was introducing them to by her presence.

“That artifact is Lightbringer, a fabled sword of Midgardian legend. My father was tracking it down and believes that he found the sword’s final resting place in the Severed Mountains.” Helena opened the map for everyone to see and watched as the resistance members all leaned in to get a closer look.

“Sol has proposed that we undergo an extraction quest to recover the sword and use it to stop Lysias. As there have been no other viable solutions, I motion for a vote on the act of embarking on a quest-” The Captain suggested but one of the others, the Man of Iron, interjected with a look of uncertainty.

“One thing. How certain are you that this blade is what we need?” One of the members questioned, not out of rudeness but cautionary concern. It would be a bad idea to pin all their hopes on a false cure.

“Absolutely certain,” Helena confirmed and the man nodded, content with that answer. The Captain rose from his seat and glanced around the table of his peers and fellow freedom fighters.

“I will start the vote with a firm yes in favor of a quest. If in favor, give a statement of agreement.” The Captain declared and Helena felt her chest release the tension she didn’t realize she was holding in. “The Widow, what says you?”

“I affirm a quest.” The first woman with brilliant flames for hair and dressed from head to toe black.

“The Red Witch?”

“I agree,” The second woman chimed in and Helena recognized her as the woman wearing all read from the first time in the tavern.

“Hawk’s Eye?”

“Aye!” A man with sandy blonde hair and calming eyes enthusiastically chipped in his vote, quite thrilled by the prospect of a quest.

“Falcon Red?”

“Yes, for the quest!” The next man, wearing red and white, gave Helena a grin and a nod in his support.

“The Winter’s Soldier?”

“I support a quest.” A dark-haired, quieter man threw his agreement in with the others.

“The Man of Iron?” All eyes settled on the man from before who questioned Helena’s certainty, although not without reason or legitimate concern, as he would be the final voice in the vote.

“Aye. The vote is unanimous for the quest,” The Man of Iron stated and a small cheer rose up from the more excitable members seated at the table. That was the best news any of them heard in a long time.

“If there are no objections, I would like to volunteer to accompany Sol on this quest. I would turn over leadership to The Man of Iron during my absence and other operations shall resume as planned, which includes meetings and recruiting of the people.” The Captain suggested to his companions, reaching their eyes. He knew that leaving would be the task of someone alongside Helena and he felt qualified to do so. The others would hold down the fort and continue the momentum of their movement to sway the townspeople.

“There are no objections to that course of action,” Hawk’s Eye declared on behalf of the others surrounding the table and the Captain nodded, turning to Helena. He didn’t know what her past experiences with questing were, but they were in it together.

“The Widow can handle packing you and equipment bag, so long as you tell her the items you want in there.” The Captain offered and the Widow nodded, knowing she was the best suited to avoid detection and Helena couldn’t leave the tavern for her safety.

“Between the baker and a dress shop, I think.” Helena awkwardly informed, feeling uncertain if the two shops she named were accurate as she didn’t get good enough glances to confirm. The Widow hardly seemed concerned and the same applied to the others.

“Okay and leave the rest to me. I know what you’ll need,” The Widow remarked with unperturbed ease and confidence in the directions of the house’s location. She knew the town and all the routes and back alleys, which meant she knew which house Helena spoke of. She nearly had to laugh that the Gryphon hid among the common people right underneath their noses for his entire career, making him better at espionage than she initially pegged of him.

“With that settled, and unless we have any other news to discuss, we may adjourn this meeting,” The Captain offered to his fellow fighters and several glanced around the table proved that new revelations took precedent over other topics of discussion for the evening. But there was something settled around the room where there wasn’t before: hope. A stranger waltzed into their lives during their time of need with a potential cure to what plague ailed the land they loved and swore to defend with their lives. There was no reason not to gamble on her to take a chance. Following the silence, the Captain slammed his hand down on the table, and thus, the meeting was over.


	2. From Nightmare to Daydream

As the evening settled on Midgard, Helena hid out in the safety of the tavern’s hidden room when the meeting dispersed and long after. The Captain disappeared for a while to conduct errands before he departed with Helena on their journey. During that time, Pepper visited Helena in the secret room with a hot meal and some water to drink— _“on the house,”_ she promised.

While Helena graciously inhaled the meal to ease her stomach, which she failed to realize was starved in the dream state, Pepper sat beside her and watched her with a kind smile. She knew all the activity going on within her walls as tavern manager and seeing as she was The Man of Iron’s companion, as she described it. Helena knew that meant his significant other without a chosen label.

“So, are you nervous? I’ve heard some rumors about outside the kingdom’s walls that would make me afraid.” Pepper inquired of Helena, who waited until she finished the bite in her mouth before answering. She politely covered her lips behind the cover of her hand as she swallowed the mouthful of food. She nearly forgot her manners when presented with a hot meal.

“ I suppose there are some nerves there, but I know that all these people are counting on us finding the sword. I don’t want to let anyone down, especially with something like this that’s a big gamble on a what-if.” Helena admitted, and she looked down at the empty plate where a pile of crumbs was the only remnants of the meal left behind. She knew that finding Lightbringer was a risk, but it seemed one that the Resistance was willing to take. They were willing to take a chance on her and her father’s theory about Lightbringer. She cleared her throat and pushed the plate away, signaling that she finished. “Besides, I trusted my father and believed that this is my chance to finish what he started—after his passing and all.” Helena nearly cursed when she felt her eyes sting and water while her throat closed up a little. She choked on her words or the mention of her father, seeing the grief still raw. Pepper frowned sympathetically when she saw Helena discreetly wipe at her eyes, figuring that Helena felt torn up over the passing and possibly close to her father.

“Well, I know that you are in good hands,” Pepper assured her and passed the glass of water she filled for her. Helena grabbed the water and nodded, a silent thank you. She sipped at the water to alleviate the dryness of her throat and relaxed after getting choked up. Now was not the time for tears, but instead the time to make her papa proud. “The Captain is one of the most experienced fighters and explorers I know. That, and he is quite protective. You will never be safer with anyone that you would be journeying with the Captain.”

“Is that so? He does give off that… vibe,” Helena blushed when she found herself at a lack of words to describe the energy the Captain gave. Assertive? Protective? Intelligent? Perhaps all of the above fit accurately? Pepper quirked her brow at Helena’s reaction but chose to keep her comment to herself. Speaking without thinking happened to be To- the Man of Iron’s signature rather than hers, but he rubbed off on her a little.

“Oh, yes. The Captain will keep you safe and get the mission done. If the sword is where the map speculates it to be, then you and he will find it. I hold the utmost faith in him… and you, Solstice.” Pepper remarked, which caught Helena off-guard somewhat. She understood faith with the Captain and his capabilities as Pepper knew him for- much longer than she knew her. But her? She didn’t see how she could inspire confidence in someone who she barely met.

“Really? Me?” Helena seemed incredulous, which caused Pepper to feel another inkling of sympathy for the younger woman. In those moments, she saw doubt and insecurity within her. She was running on her grief, going through the motions, and somehow failing to see the magnitude of what she was doing. A short glance into her eyes was like windows into her pain, on display for the world to see for those bold enough to gaze into the unnerving shade of blue. 

“Let me tell you something, Solstice. I’ve known all the fighters for a long time. You have something unlike the rest of them that we haven’t seen in so long: hope. You brought hope back to a fight we always questioned whether it was worth it.” Pepper declared, and Helena visibly brightened from her words, a simple compliment really.

“Thank you. I appreciate that” Helena replied sweetly, and Pepper nodded, seeing that she made a small difference in Helena’s demeanor. Their short conversation came to its end by a knock against the door with the swing of it open to reveal the Captain, dressed in dark clothing and carrying a satchel. He glanced between the two women and held up a second bag, the one prepared for Helena by The Widow. She made sure to pack lightly and only what was needed for the journey, understanding that burdening oneself with unnecessary items posed as disastrous. 

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” The Captain questioned with a curious glance to Pepper as he gifted Helena the rucksack belonging to her. Helena opened it and gave a cursory glance at the items within the pack, not planning on dumping all the things out and conducting a more thorough search. She saw the map and the books she requested from the Widow, accompanied by other items like clothes and some artifacts which her father recorded as magical or fortunate things to bring on a journey.

“No. Nothing at all. You be safe out there, Captain.” Pepper remarked, and she gave him a friendly pat of the shoulder with a keen look in her eyes. The Captain understood what it meant by the way she glanced between him and Helena. _Take care of her._ The Captain nodded wordlessly, and Pepper, content with his acknowledgment, headed downstairs to determine the tavern was empty, and their passage was safe to go. It might be the dead of night, but the Captain and Helena had several obstacles threatening to keep them from escaping the walls of the town.

“Well, this is it, huh?” Helena murmured softly, pulling her arms through the rucksack’s straps underneath the blue cloak belonging to her father. She pre-emptively pulled up the hood over her loose braid and stray tendrils of brunette hair framing her face. Although the unsettled jumbling of her stomach raged on, she had the urge to smile as a means of settling her unease.

“Are you ready for what might await us beyond the city’s walls. Once we slip past the guards and vanish into the night, there will be no returning before we recover the sword.” The Captain reminded, sensing the nervous energy rolling of Helena from where she sat across the room. He understood that facing the unknown could be terrifying to most, but there was no choice for him. If there was a weapon powerful enough to banish whatever darkness lingered within the kingdom out there, he would find it and bring it back to Midgard’s gates.

“I am. We have people to save,” Helena remarked, selling the confidence to herself more than she was to the Captain. Whether or not she was truly prepared hardly mattered, at least to Helena. The adventure ahead would be no walk in the park, she expected that much. She was ready for the most challenging journey of her lifetime.

“That’s the spirit. The guard rotation should be changing in fifteen minutes or so, which means that we have to be ready to go.” The Captain informed, and the suddenness was not lost on Helena. She quickly closed the rucksack and ensured it was tight before she rose from her seat. Together, the Captain and Helena descended the stairs and returned to the ground floor of the tavern, now empty. Helena was struck by the contrast from the rowdy atmosphere from before compared to the deathly silent ghost town. Empty tables and chairs filled the room, devoid of life or the merriment brought within its walls by patrons. The Captain gave a farewell wave to Pepper, who stood behind the bar, and she waved back, When the two exited the doors of Stark Tavern, Pepper found herself praying to whatever the forces that be for their safe passage over Solstice and the Captain.

The Captain and Helena slipped into the nearest alley, using the shadows as cover from detection by any unaccounted-for guards who might happen to wander around the empty town. The hour of the night was dead silent as the palace instated a curfew upon the city without justification and cruel retribution for those who protested against the decision. So, getting caught outside by unfriendly guards equaled a death sentence.

Helena pulled the hood tighter around her face as she calmed herself down through steady, consistent breathing. The last thing she needed was an anxiety attack to throw her while attempting to break out of a guarded city. She decided to follow carefully behind the Captain while she reviewed their plans made between the two of them at the meeting’s conclusion hours before. Both were armed with weapons. The Captain carried a sword, not unlike the gladius of roman fame, strapped to his back and hidden underneath his dark blue cloak. His primary weapon resided within his own two fists, armored with metallic gauntlets as he made a name for himself as an arena fighter.

As for Helena, she was far from a helpless damsel. The Widow gifted her a small, finely crafted silver dagger to hold on her waist by a leatherwork sheath. The blade provided some solace of danger, and the bow and arrow, currently hidden in the Captain’s satchel, would benefit them on hunts for food and other supplies. However, Helena’s most significant power didn’t come in a physical form. Upon additional reading of her father’s journal, she discovered that he was a mage—not unlike that of Ser Lightwood. Her father chronicled simple spells within the bound pages of his diary as if he knew he would be leaving them behind for Helena to use. According to what The Red Witch, another mage, shared with her, the magic ran through bloodlines, and that inferred Helena was another mage by her bloodline.

Helena spent the hours she stayed hidden in the attic room of Stark Tavern, reading over the spells. Her first victory came when she managed to summon a small spurt of flames on her palm, which earned a round of proud squealing. Helena hadn’t felt that accomplished since graduating from nursing school, and the rush of enthrallment was not lost on her. However, she noticed that prolonged use of magic started to make her feel exhausted and figured there was some form of energy transaction from using spells. So, she quit while she was ahead after her success at conjuring some flames.

Under the Captain’s lead, he and Helena wandered through the city’s darkened back alleys in a zig-zag pattern to reach the gate with the most efficient timing. Standing in the alley to the left of the entrance and sheltered underneath the cover of shadows, the Captain and Helena witnessed the guard rotation above. However, their plan was stopped when they noticed two guards flanking the gate and the rusted iron cover of the gate locked down. They were trapped inside.

“Shit, we’re blocked in. Please tell me you can teleport us outside the gates or have something to make a distraction in that magic arsenal of yours, Sol.” The Captain remarked and turned to Helena, seeing her as the better option than he. He could put the beatdown on the guards, but that would end up noisier than they needed.

“I don’t- Let me try something, okay?” Helena inquired of the Captain, who gave a curt nod and focused his steeled gaze ahead on the threat standing between them and freedom. Helena racked her brain for something she might be able to do, and she reached into the rucksack, plucking out her father’s journal. She flipped to a tabbed page and read through his spell list, praying for a miracle. Helena swallowed thickly and closed the journal between her palms, knowing what she was about to attempt might fail. But it was worth a shot. She shut her eyes and sucked in a deep breath, opening her body to the magical energies surrounding her. Her father once told her that there was magic all around them, and she believed he meant that. From around her, magic gathered and formed into near tangible sensations. She reached out and seized the connection as taut as a bowstring, and she the archer who carried it but with the frequency of electricity reminiscent of a live wire. Grabbing onto the energy and embracing the power, Helena felt her body jolt awake with new life. Her eyes flew open, and the Captain observed the gold color of her irises where there once was blue. Emotionless and flat, Helena’s face gave nothing away as she whispered, “Sleep.”

Much to the Captain’s (and Helena’s) amazement, the guards flanking the gate wobbled before collapsing to the ground with dull thuds. They were fast asleep.

“Nice work,” The Captain complimented with raised brows and an impressed whistle. He had seen Red’s magic from time to time, but her spells never worked as quickly as Helena did. He guessed that her dad being a powerful mage might impact her skills, even as a newcomer. Helena nodded, and the two, not wanting to waste any time, slinked up against the wall to the gate. When approaching, Helena looked between the holes in the entrance and the Captain. They had another problem with their escape plan.

“Oh,” Helena whispered when she stepped over one of the unconscious guards, careful not to stir him from his induced slumber. The openings within the iron were narrower than she or the Captain initially anticipated, which was a problem. There went their hope of sneaking through the gate without rousing the guards overhead.

“Oh, what?” The Captain questioned, immediately picking up on her tone. Helena glanced over her shoulder at him and pointed to the gate.

“You are not going to fit through the bars. I can, which means we’ll need to get the gate open.” Helena explained, and the Captain realized that she was right. She was quite the observant eye, which reassured his worries about her nerves.

“Okay. I’ll hold your pack for the moment and pass it through the gate when you make it,” The Captain offered, and Helena, knowing that he made an excellent point about limiting the space she took up, slipped the rucksack from her shoulders and gifted it to the Captain. He watched the coast for any danger while Helena approached the gates. Making herself as small as possible, Helena sucked in a breath and squeezed herself through the gate. She exhaled excitedly when successfully standing up and gestured for her sack, which the Captain passed through as promised.

Helena approached the door to the right, which she assumed that the switch for the gate rested behind and fiddled with the knob. She grimaced when giving it a jiggle or two with the knob failing to budge. It was locked.

Chewing on her lower lip, she glanced at the guards and spotted a small gleam from one of the guards’ belts. The keys. She waved to the Captain and frantically pointed at the belt where the keys were. The Captain, although confused, squat down to where Helena was gesturing to, and that was when he spotted the key ring. His eyes lit in recognition, and he managed to disentangle the keys from the belt without stirring the guard who they belonged to. The Captain passed them through the gate, and Helena rushed to apply every key until she found the right one.

Upon selecting the right key, the door opened with a click, and Helena signaled to the Captain for him to be ready. She secured the rucksack on her back, and she grabbed for the lever meant to open the gates. When the Captain gave her a thumbs up, Helena pulled down the bar to the creaking of the gate opening. Several shouts came from the top of the ramparts from the unaware guards, scrambling to identify why the gates were opening and who opened them. Neither Helena nor the Captain planned on staying around long enough for them to get answers from them. That was why the Captain rolled underneath the gate’s opening as soon as he could and joined Helena in sprinting through the second side.

Their hoods were pulled up to mask their faces, and they overheard the guards screaming about a potential intruder but changing their tune at the last second when spotting the two fleeing figures sprint into the trees outside the gate. The element of surprise worked in the Captain and Helena’s favor, which gave them an advantage on the burdened guards. At first, Helena and the Captain stuck to the paved road in the dirt as the limited light shone brightest there. However, the Captain realized that should the guards mobilize their forces to chase him and Helena down, and they would use the path. Therefore, they needed to throw them off the trail.

When the Captain veered to the side, Helena refused to fall behind and stumbled after him. They descended into the dense underbrush and charged full speed ahead. Their surroundings were darker than the main path, practically impossible to see what was around or where the other was beside the echo of footsteps and heavy breathing. 

“Hurry! We don’t want them to catch up to us!” The Captain exclaimed, and he reached behind him, grabbing at Helena’s hand blindly through the darkness of the night. Helena didn’t protest the move as she was focused on not tripping over the gnarled tree roots or thick underbrush emerging from the ground. When racing into the forest outside the walls, the Captain and Helena chose to veer from the marked, dirt path. The terrain became more treacherous to navigate but lowered the risk of being caught by the confused guards. The more they ran, the further out the angered yells of the guards sounded to the Captain and Helena. 

Even after the voices went utterly silent and the only noise to be heard was the heavy breathing of the two, they continued to run. When rushing water came into focus, the Captain slowed his pace, and Helena followed suit. The Captain knew the terrain outside of the walls by extensive studying of the map provided and deduced that the nearest source of water in the direction they ran was nearly a mile or two away from the kingdom. That would be the Sokovia River, located northwest of the gates and on the same road that would lead him and Helena to the Severed Mountains.

“We should be far enough to where the guards won’t follow, for now. Their reluctance gives us a head start, and Lysias might keep them from searching for us.” The Captain explained, and Helena, wildly out of breath and self-conscious about her lack of physical fitness, nodded mutely while she attempted to regain some composure. She needed to hit the gym or _something._

“Sounds good.” Helena agreed, mostly since she needed a rest from sprinting blindly through the dark woods before she twisted an ankle or seriously ate it. She and the Captain made their way back onto the main road, and some light trickled through the foliage to make their path marginally more visible. The Captain glanced over to Helena and noted the exhaustion evident on her face, illuminated dimly under the light of the two moons.

“What a way to start our journey,” He cracked a joke, hoping an offering of humor might lighten the despair written on Helena’s face. Helena did give a small giggle. She tried to bite back, which improved the overall mood between the two. They got away; they lived to fight another day. That new day might have to wait when Helena felt the stirring call of the waking world. 

“I won’t be here for much longer,” Helena mused when the skies turned from pitch black to the first inklings of morning’s light. It would only be a matter of time before the real world claimed her again. The Captain nodded, understanding.

“Hand me your pack. I shall hold onto it for you and continue the journey. I might find somewhere to set up camp and sleep for the night.” The Captain suggested, and Helena nodded, handing off her rucksack to him. She trusted him, and she promised that she would be back, fading away not long after that.

* * *

Several weeks passed with Helena developing a bit of a routine: sleep (where she would adventure with the Captain) and work. There was little room for much else. Before Midgard, Helena had a slow social life with a small group of friends. That all changed when Midgard became her focus. The shift in Helena of going from quiet to virtually mute hardly slipped past the notice of her coworkers and her friends, who were all collectively concerned.

None were more concerned than Priya Clarke, Helena’s best friend from college. Helena was on the quieter side, sure. But it was unlike Helena to ignore messages for hours on end, blow off attempts to make plans with halfhearted excuses, or spend all her time cooped up inside her apartment. Those behaviors set off warning bells, and Priya assumed that Helena was still wrapped up in her grief.

She made attempts to reach Helena through the phone with words of comfort, but their impact was unknown. So, Priya planned on staging some sort of in-person check-in with her friend after work, taking place at her apartment, so there was nowhere Helena could hide. This was unbeknownst to Helena, who planned on quickly returning home after work as she was on a strict meeting time with the Captain.

Thus far, in their journey, they made substantial progress in distance traveled. Most of the adventuring seemed quite tame with no encounters with any dangers or close calls with guards hunting them. The time often got filled with conversations between the Captain and her, marked by getting to know each other better.

Helena rushed into her apartment and threw the jacket she wore onto the counter lazily, figuring she could put it away later. She lived alone, so no one to complain about the mess. Her apartment was tidy otherwise, and- she had no clue why she was so hung up on the coat. She tended to get worked up over smaller, not substantial things to distract from what she was apprehensive about—which happened to be that her shift ran a little later than anticipated, and she might arrive in Midgard late.

She beelined straight for the couch, ignoring the stacks of journals covered in her handwriting and tossed open for convenience. She started recording down information outside the dream state and compiling lore on Midgard for personal reference. Every person she met, every story she learned, every factoid about the Captain or any of the other resistance fighters. Even stories about her father made their way into the spiral-bound pages. Helena laid herself on the beat-up sectional that came with the apartment and closed her eyes, centering herself to sink into sleep.

That focus found itself cut painfully short with a knock on Helena’s door, causing her eyes to fly open. She blankly stared up at her ceiling and wondered if she ignored the knocking, would it go away? She begrudgingly sat herself up and rubbed at her eyes, wondering who was at her door. She paid her rent advanced this month and ate a small meal at the hospital before leaving, which meant no food delivery. Helena ran out of potential options as to who might be outside her apartment, so she reluctantly walked over to the door and opened it.

“Priya, what brings you by?” Helena tilted her head to the side, curious as to why her good friend was standing outside her apartment without forewarning and the pitying sympathy look in her eyes. Helena didn’t need anything to be said to know that look.

“Helena, can we talk?” Priya asked, skipping all the pleasantries and cutting straight to the chase. Helena, for her part, managed to keep calm and avoid any tells. She wasn’t the greatest liar out there, but she could be if her life depended on it. 

“Uh, sure- Please come in,” Helena awkwardly shuffled out of the doorway to let Priya past her and into the apartment. She softly closed the door to the hallway and steadied herself against it, feeling her mind scrambling. Did she forget a meeting with Priya? This was terrible timing, really. “Would you like some water?”

“No thanks,” Priya waved her off, and Helena mutely nodded, walking into the kitchen to fetch herself a glass of water. Priya’s unexpected presence at her apartment was increasing her racing heartbeat. Priya examined the apartment to see it relatively neat, which was a good sign. The only disconcerting thing was the extra boxes of takeout poking out from the trash. So, Priya only had her behavior to speak on as a warning sign. Priya sighed while she sat down on Helena’s couch, warily glancing at the notebooks. It was time to be upfront. “Helena, I’m worried about you.”

“Why? I am flattered that you care so greatly about me, Priya, but there is nothing to be worried about.” Helena remarked quietly, hoping that Priya accepted her explanation at face value. She had no interest nor the time for an interrogation. She needed to get Priya off her case and send her happily on her way soon, by whatever means necessary.

“You’ve been acting strange lately, Helena. I’m not the only one who thinks so, but I am the only one willing to call you on it,” Priya reached for the open notebook on the table, and she scanned it. _Midgard? The Captain? King Lysias?_ What the hell was Helena writing in these journals? Priya felt worried that Helena was actively going insane from grief, and that was nowhere near healthy. Priya had seen enough proof of that. She grabbed the journal on top and held it up, standing up so Helena could see what she had in her hand. Helena, standing in the kitchen, felt fear when she saw Priya grabbed one of the journals. Her mind went into overdrive to make a reasonable explanation. Priya frowned, “Helena, these writings are like the ramblings of a crazy person. What is all of this? I am anxious about you.”

“Oh! Those are nothing to worry about!” Helena exclaimed, rather chirpily for the circumstances. She acted like she wasn’t being interrogated about her strange behavior with a peaceful smile on her face. She paused to drink her water, giving herself a moment to compose her story. “Okay, I haven’t told anyone this yet. But I am writing a novel. See, it was my dad’s dream to write one about the bedtime stories he told me. Ever since he passed, I found his old notes and decided to finish what he started. So those are for that- Really, I promise that I am okay, and you have no reason to worry.” Helena explained confidently, which managed to convince Priya, as evidenced by her relaxed expression.

“Okay, that is somewhat better. Just- take care of yourself, okay? You have a whole bunch of people who care about you and don’t want you to forget about taking care of yourself.” Priya sternly reminded, but her face softened visibly. Helena wanted to feel closer to her late dad and thought to finish his dream might do that, which was understandable. She was grieving his loss, and Priya wasn’t going to tell her how to grieve.

“I will,” Helena nodded as she set the glass of water down on the counter, likely going to abandon it during the rush to return to Midgard. She gave Priya a small smile, which did wonders for Priya’s acceptance of the reason. Priya rose from the couch and gave Helena a wave as the two walked to the door. She would leave Helena be to work on her novel. The fact that she chose to channel her grief through a creative outlet was a better outcome than Priya anticipated—so she counted that as a success.

Helena closed the door calmly and waited for a few breaths before snapping the locks into place. She scrambled to the bedroom, stripping off her scrubs along the way. She launched into her covers and wormed her way underneath them, willing her body to embrace sleep. She prayed that she wasn’t late or caused the Captain any concern in her absence. She closed her eyes and imagined herself sinking deeper into the comforter to where her body became heavy. As weightless as dust in the wind, Helena’s soul fell through and down the abyss of sleep.

Eyes opened, and Helena was back in Midgard, her body curled up on the bedroll belonging to the Captain. From beside her, the soft trickling of the creek filled the surroundings with ambient noise to accompany the distant cry of birds. The sun barely rose in the sky. The skies were soft blue and mostly cloudless. Helena glanced from side to side, taking in her and the Captain’s belongings but not the Captain.

“Perhaps he went to relieve himself or hunting? There is no need to panic,” Helena assured herself as she sat up, realizing that her head laid on her rucksack. She opened the bag and peered through the contents for her thorough examination. There were extra clothes at the bottom, the journal, a smaller book that she didn’t recognize, the dagger, some small rations for emergencies, gold coin, and a light pink crystal with twine wrapped the center. As the items packed were relatively straightforward, she retrieved her father’s journal and resumed her readings on the page she last left off.

The journal was packed with knowledge and essential information. Helena believed impossible to find anywhere else in Midgard, and she took reading it seriously. Any moment of downtime or pause in their trek, she would have the book open to the next page. With the instructions, she and the Captain avoided several encounters that would’ve been disastrous for them. 

The first page she opened up to happened to be different from what she expected. Instead of a lengthy journal entry or a map of the terrain that warned of potential dangers, there was a simple drawing of a necklace on the page. It was drawn to scale and elegantly refined in design, accompanied by a three-word mantra scrawled in her father’s handwriting below it: _In luce victoria._

She ran her fingers over the drawing of the amulet and jokingly whispered the incantation, yelping in surprise when color seeped onto the page. Before she realized it, the charm rose from the page and slid into her lap, now tangible and real. Helena closed the book, and she scooped up the pendant from the bedroll, lifting it toward the sun. Her breath caught in her chest when admiring the opal centerpiece glittering against the sun’s light and the overall beauty of the amulet. She, not wanting to lose it, decided to wear it. Her nimble fingers clasped the necklace from behind her neck and noticed how the coolness of the opal and the golden chain resting against her skin felt right.

“Welcome back, Sol. I see you made it back on time,” The Captain greeted, approaching from around the bed of trees bordering the river. On the one hand, he carried a small net with some small fish inside and an arrow in the other, utilizing the arrowhead as a makeshift spear for fishing. Helena glanced up, and her cheeks blazed bright red when she realized that the Captain was missing a shirt. She purposely looked anywhere but his sculpted torso out of respect, which somehow slipped past the Captain’s notice. He held up the net with the makings of a faint smile on his lips, “I planned on cooking some fish. Want any?”

“Uh, yes, please,” Helena stammered, but the Captain didn’t seem to linger on it for too long. He headed over to the small fire he assembled during the early morning to keep warm, where he planned to cook their meals. They could use their energy and strength up for another full day of traveling through the brush. If he was correct, they would soon enter the most dangerous area of the Red Ash Wilds. There was no telling what dangers might await them, hidden in the canopy of the trees or the underbrush surrounding their feet.

* * *

Before the Captain and Helena could ascend the summit of the Severed Mountains, they needed to determine which mountain held the sword. According to the journal, there was a spirit at the base of the mountain that only allowed those pure of heart to pass unchallenged. Therefore, the Captain and Helena would need to descend into the valley to reach the spirit. However, the valley posed more dangers than the rest of Red Ash Wilds, and the Captain knew additional precautions were necessary to his and Helena’s survival.

Trekking to the safest road down into the valley meant taking a long way around, which left Helena and the Captain ambling through the dense brush and the crimson hue of the trees—lending itself to name Red Ash Wilds. The Captain used his sword to slash through the foliage standing between him, Helena, and their intended route from what the journal wrote. The unperturbed road tended to get ignored by most travelers, seeking the most direct way through the mountains. But their quest was somewhat different. 

Helena trailed behind the Captain, far enough back to keep unharmed from his fervent swinging. She observed the sight of him, hacking and slashing some stubborn tree branches, with a touch of amusement in between reading the spells she found later on in the book. Through their journey, she worked on enhancing her magic use and found that her skills had improved ever since putting on the amulet that rested against her collarbone. She assumed that the opal charm gifted her with more magical energy, but she didn’t plan on taking it off to find out.

“Tell me something, Solstice. You ask a lot of questions about your father. Did he never share his exploits?” The Captain inquired, pulling Helena’s attention away from the wall of the light shield she was glancing over. She gravitated toward the spells working with light or heat, finding them more comfortable to use than ice ones. She glanced up at him and noticed he stopped cutting the branches for a moment. When their eyes met, the Captain turned back to the trees ahead and resumed his slashes.

“Yes and no,” Helena remarked, and she could feel the confused expression from the Captain without him needing to turn around. That didn’t make sense, she knew. Helena sighed and pushed the loose tendrils of hair from around her face. “Up until recently, I was under the impression that the tales of Midgard from my father were nothing more than bedtime stories for a little girl. I never in my life would’ve imagined they were anything more than that, really. So, I guess I’m behind the learning curve for this world, and it doesn’t help when I return to the other side.”

“Ah, I see,” The Captain wiped the sweat from his brow, hard at work with eliminating those pesky trees and dealing with the warmth of the Midgardian afternoon. Oh, how he wished it was winter even with the threat of snow. He never enjoyed working in the heat, especially with his traveling gear on. He could hear the twinge of nostalgia and sadness in her voice when discussing her father. She must still hold grief over his passing, which she never elaborated on longer than she needed to. He never asked, despite his curiosity as to what defeated the mighty, noble Gryphon. “Were you- close, at least?”

“Yes. My father was the only family I had. My mom was never in the picture, and I was an only child. He and I were extremely close since childhood and long before his passing,” Helena fondly recalled, turning her face to the side when her eyes burned. Nostalgia burned cruelly, flaunting past the rose-colored glasses to remind Helena that her father was gone. She hummed agitatedly under her breath and forced back visible upset, not wanting to make the Captain burden her grief. She cracked her neck from side to side, taking in her aching body from the endless travel. “If we are getting personal with our questions, Captain, then might I ask what got you involved with the Resistance? Were you the mastermind behind the idea of an anonymous band of freedom fighters?” 

“Hardly,” The Captain remarked, mumbling out a grunt when he encountered a stubborn set of brush that refused to clear out of the way. Helena’s lips formed into an ‘o’ shape, and she cocked her head to the side, confusion marked on her face. 

“If not you, then who did?” Helena inquired, wondering if there was another leader of the movement as she was under the impression that the Captain was the man in charge. He interacted with the others with an air of authority, and they followed him without much dissent from what she saw. What did she know? She was an interloper, an outsider who tumbled into their life by sheer accident but somehow found herself wrapped up in their business.

“The story of the Resistance started as the idea formed by old friends of mine and the Man of Iron’s father. My close friend, Margaret, was the one who came up with the idea for the resistance years ago. Lysias’ decline into madness is no new saga. Margaret- Peggy, as she preferred to be called, allied with Howard Stark and Daniel Sousa, who was her husband. The three of them started a growing movement within the minds of the Midgardian people. Peggy was a persuader. They coordinated meetings, held battles with the king’s forces, robbed the rich who stole from the poor, just about every noble act imaginable under the guise of vigilante justice.” The Captain explained, and Helena nodded, seeing that checked out with what she learned about Midgard through research. The oppression of those in the kingdom by Lysias stretched far beyond the influence of the dark, and therefore, an opposition movement made sense. But what didn’t make sense was the way the Captain carefully selected his word and the tiniest hesitations when he spoke—telling Helena there was something wrong.

“What happened to Peggy or the others?” Helena questioned, sensing something unsettling lingering underneath the surface of his words. He spoke of Peggy and the others with a fondness of someone no longer around, in the same way she spoke of her father. It didn’t take a genius to see that. The Captain’s face darkened, and his jaw clenched, betraying the calm. The rage of grief marred his eyes with something inescapable.

“Lysias hired mercenaries, and they uncovered her identity. They ambushed her, Daniel, Howard, and his wife, Maria. They slaughtered them in their beds, ransacked their places, and vanished life thieves into the night. The guards ‘investigated’ but the town whispered on and rumors of a hit circulated through Midgard. I knew the truth as does everyone else who took up the cause in their honor.” Helena didn’t miss the pain in his voice, understanding that he genuinely cared for Peggy, and he respected her much. Losing someone close to you could be hard; it changed you and not necessarily for the better. She sympathized with the Captain in his loss, but the tiresome battle he inherited.

“So, you take up the mantle to honor her—not unlike I am with my father. Perhaps you and I are not so different, Captain.” Helena softly remarked, bridging the middle ground between her and the Captain uncovered by his tale of Margaret Carter. The Captain, silent for a moment, continued to hack and slash at the foliage up ahead. But he heard Helena’s idea, and he knew she was right.

“I suppose that is true, Solstice. You and I, we understand what’s at stake and have a vested interest in solving the kingdom’s leadership problem once and for all,” The Captain conceded, his face turned away from Helena to where she missed the beginnings of a smile forming. An astute observation on her part. 

“Ah, so we’ve reached the stage of questing where we bond, yes?” Helena commented, a playful jab on the tropes of the fantasy genre. God knows she read enough fantasy books from the local library growing up to recognize tropes when she saw them. The Captain let out the bark of a laugh, pleasantly surprised by the little quip escaping Helena. She tended to be quieter, seemingly sweet. There was a fire in her, buried down but in there. The shared laugh between the two abruptly ended when a sharp snapping echoed from somewhere over to their northeast. The Captain tensed, and he held his hand to stop Helena from advancing any further. His danger instincts went haywire, and he knew they were being stalked by something nearby. Whatever it was, the Captain knew it poses a threat to their lives and to proceed with caution.

“Stay behind me. Don’t make any sudden movements. If I tell you to run, run, and don’t look back.” The Captain sternly demanded of Helena, which scared her greatly. He couldn’t expect her to leave him behind should they encounter trouble, could he?

“Captain-” Helena attempted to protest when the rustling grew louder, and the Captain pushed her back to safety. This had nothing to do with anything she could help. She wasn’t trained in the use of weapons and magic fought better at a distance. So, he needed her to maintain a transparent barrier between him and whatever approached them. He would handle the opponent or the beast, which loomed closer.

Crashing through the brush with a frenzied snarl, a wolf crawled toward the Captain with eyes glowing an unnatural, sickly shade of orange and a growl that sounded unlike that of an ordinary wolf. The Captain had heard rumors of wolves attacking travelers, which was out of character. Unless provoked, wolves avoided humans and only protected their pack when threatened. But something was unsettling about the wolves of the Red Ash Wilds that screamed ill-intentioned magic.

“Stay back, Solstice!” The Captain exclaimed as the wolf leaned back and leaped toward the Captain, eliciting a scream from Helena. The Captain clashed with the wolf, dodging the snapping teeth and savage attacks, playing defensive. Helena scrambled to return to the spellbook, looking for something in there. While she did that, the Captain made sure to keep the wolf on him—even when he felt the wolf’s razor-sharp claws graze his side enough to tear through the fabric. He stifled a groan and focused on batting it away with his blade, a move that served to anger the wolf.

The wolf ascended onto its hind legs and slashed downward, not unlike the frenzied attack of a bear. The force crashing down knocked the Captain’s sword from his hand and sent it scattering off to the side, barely out of fingers’ reach. The full weight of the wolf came crashing down on the Captain in a writhing mass of fangs and pitch-black fur and glowing eyes promising a bloody death should the bite get too close. The Captain’s hands gripped at the paws and held them up and away from his body, placing distance between him and the claws that could shred his skin to ribbons. He dodged around snapping bites from the wolf aimed for his face, moving his head from side to side. He pushed back against the wolf’s heaviness with his strength, essentially wrestling with the feral creature and hoping to win in a battle of grappling.

“Captain!” Helena had seen enough, slapping the journal shut. She urgently grasped at the energy rolling around her and channeled them through her emotions. Panic, fear, and above all, anger. That simmering rage running around rose buoyantly to the surface, and Helena felt her hands heat up with the promise of an inferno. She formed the fire in her clenched fist and turned her palm toward the wolf, urging the flame to fly. In the form of a fireball, the flames evacuated Helena’s hand and burned the wolf’s face. The Captain winced from the warmth of the fire enveloped his face from uncomfortable proximity. The wolf’s head snapped toward Helena, and the Captain’s did as well, the focus on Helena with her golden eyes and a slight aura to her. The wolf ‘s body tensed when Helena summoned a bow from thin air, glowing with golden light. An arrow of the same elemental energy materialized into the nocked bow, the feathered end reaching the corner of her pursed lips. Seeing a new threat in Helena, the wolf sprinted toward her, and she remained calm.

“Arrow, let your aim ring true!” Helena declared and let the arrow fly, the streak of light whizzing past her face and landing between the wolf’s eyes. The dull thud stunned her and the Captain alike, observing as the wolf collapsed lifelessly between her and the Captain. With no movement and the accuracy of the shot, the wolf was undeniably dead. She dissolved the bow and raced around the wolf’s carcass to the Captain, kneeling beside him. She searched him frantically, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I- I’ll be fine,” The Captain lied smoothly, covering up the grimace when he strained his side. It was nothing Helena needed to worry about; she just saved their lives. Wrapping his arm over Helena’s shoulder, the Captain worked with her to get back on his feet. He retrieved his sword and looked at the wolf, seeing an opportunity for some materials to be taken. He kneeled next to the wolf, brandishing his weapon, and Helena turned away. She swallowed thickly and averted her eyes, not interested in watching him cut the beast open. She wasn’t squeamish but was not a fan of watching animals be carved up.

Her mind was reeling from the fact she saved his life, just then. The experience was terrifying, yet somehow a small part of her found exhilaration in it. She must be going a little crazy. More than anything else, she was relieved she helped the Captain. God knows where she would be without his guidance on this adventure.

* * *

Helena and the Captain, following the wolf attack, traveled until the sun started to set as they wanted to set up camp. Lucking out and stumbling across an open clearing under the stars, Helena managed to set up their bedrolls and the rations pre-packed by the Widow. They did have some wolf meat that the Captain performed a quick preserving method on, so the meat might hold until they cooked it.

Speaking of the Captain, he spotted a chopped down log a short distance away from their makeshift camp and planned on rolling it over so they could take watches. He already collected firewood and a pile of stones to set up a small fire. Helena had set the rocks in a small circle and piled up some of the branch scraps together. Not needing a flint, Helena summoned a little flame in her hand and casually flicked the fire into the small woodpile. She watched a fire catch and light, providing some warmth where the outside air cooled from the afternoon. Helena glanced up when she heard the log rolling toward her and took in the sight of the Captain, straining and somehow making her out of breath by watching him work. When he reached a satisfactory spot, he ceased rolling and rounded the log to the other side. Helena’s attention keenly focused on the way that he shielded his right side or how he slumped down before the fire. The wince that accompanied the action confirmed Helena’s suspicions, and before he might hide it from her, she was already up with her rucksack in hand.

“You’re injured. Why didn’t you tell me?” Helena softly demanded; her face not hardened enough to convey anger at him. She wasn’t angry per se, but she wished he had said something. Leaving wounds open or untreated ran the risk of becoming infected, which would complicate things. Her eyes met his while her hands reached for the injury, tracing a feather-light touch.

“I didn’t think it was bad,” The Captain admitted, and Helena pursed her lips, made the silent motion for him to lift his shirt so she might examine the wound, and helped him to peel away his clothing blocking her view of the injury. She sighed when she saw that the final layer standing between his bare skin and her sported bloodstains, dried. The Captain winced while doing specific movements and likely felt pain throughout the day without saying anything to her.

“I’ll tell you what I tell everyone: clean wounds immediately unless you want to risk infecting them,” Helena murmured, and she dug into her rucksack. She grabbed her cloak and cut off a small piece to work as a makeshift washcloth and wet it with some purified water from her canteen. Loose tendrils of hair covering her face obscured the firelight from casting full shadows along her features, which was something the Captain noticed. Her movements were practiced, calm, and meticulous. Helena looked at him with her eyes, asking for permission to touch. “I’m going to do a quick clean up with some water to get rid of the blood. It is going to be uncomfortable. God, what I wouldn’t give for my suture kit right about now.”

“Suture kit, huh? You sound like a professional,” The Captain remarked between hitches in his breath and pained grimaces twisting up his handsome face while Helena diligently cleaned away the dried blood sticking to his skin. She tried her best to be gentle around the sore wound while she examined it with the firelight. It appears that the wolf swiped up the Captain’s side and landed a stinging but shallow series of cuts.

“That’s because I’m a nurse,” Helena replied when she checked for any leftover blood dried against his skin. The damage was minor, meaning it should heal naturally soon. However, Helena swore that she saw a healing spell in her father’s journal. So, she would look for it.

“Seriously? I must be in excellent hands, then.” The Captain had to wonder what his luck was for Helena to be a medical professional. He tended to do sloppy patch-up jobs while out adventuring, which infuriated Red to no end and often resulted in his friends threatening to strangle him for his stubbornness. He nearly let a chuckle escape him while Helena reached into the rucksack for the journal.

She fished it out and opened it to the page marked with spells, lightly dragging her finger down the page until she spotted the spell. According to the writings, her amulet would help with that spell, and she needed to redirect existing energy into a healing purpose. Helena put the journal away and rubbed her hands together. She imagined pushing the power around her into her palms, encouraging them to cool to the touch. A few deep breaths in and out, then she started to feel cold, trickling up her forearms from her hands. A simple glance down revealed the soft blue glow adopted by her skin, and Helena, figuring the energy was ready, hurried back over to the Captain. She examined the wound and laid her hands to his warm skin, contrasting with the cold of hers. The sensation of the coldness numbed the injury for the Captain, providing some relief.

“I took care of my father before he passed. I spent his final days, tending to him.” Helena whispered and shyly glanced up from where she kneeled before the Captain. Underneath her gentle touch, the wounded flesh began to knit itself back together and revert back to an undamaged state. The pain eased completely, and when Helena removed her hands from his skin, the wound was no more. No scar, no red, no blood. His skin was brand new, untouched and healed.

“Then he was lucky to have you,” The Captain remarked when he grabbed his satchel and pulled out the rations for them to share. The two shared a brief meal with the wolf meat by the fire with no need for the conversation to interrupt the comfortable silence. Eventually, they finished, and it would be time to turn in for the night with their new system. One would stay awake and keep watch while the other rested up before switching.

“You should sleep first. You’ll have traveling to do when I turn back into the real world,” Helena suggested and gave the Captain a tired smile. She could stay up until she flickered away, which would give the Captain the protection to sleep without worrying about predators stumbling upon him.

“Are you sure?” The Captain questioned, seeing that she appeared exhausted and knowing that magic was no easy thing. He spent enough time with Red to know that much, and Helena spent a good portion of the day using her magic.

Positive,” Helena promised, and she meant it. Besides, his sleeping first made the most sense out of the two of them. Her blue eyes softened when the Captain accepted the decision and walked across the small camp to his bedroll. He sat down on it and prepared himself to sleep. So, she whispered, “Goodnight, Captain.”

“Goodnight, Solstice,” He remarked as he laid in his bedroll, flat on his back, and drifted off to a peaceful sleep. Helena hunkered down with the journal by the log and vowed to make a sizable dent in the text. There was much for her to still learn.

She would spend an immeasurable amount of time with the journal in hand and tired eyes absorbing information with unquenchable hunger, reminiscent of her time in college. She was the type to devour any book she got her hands on, which made it a shame that she no longer had time to sit down and read anymore. She was always busy with work. Oh, the irony that it took her stumbling upon a magic dream world threatened by an evil king and adventuring on a quest with a hunky warrior to make her rediscover the love of reading. Helena was somewhat self-aware.

As the night grew darker and darker, Helena stoked the fire to keep the unconscious Captain warm. When he shivered more than twice, she draped her cloak over his body to keep him warm. She was keen on taking care of him. She believed him to be a figment of this dreamscape, but that hardly stopped her from caring. That’s just who she was.

The darkness peeled away as the hours ticked by, somehow going faster than Helena expected them to. When she felt the stirring call of the waking world reach her ears, she ambled over to the Captain and gently awoke him from his slumber. His eyes met hers while she leaned over him, smiling.

“I have to go. I’ll be back soon,” Helena told the Captain, and he nodded, sitting himself up. Helena turned to put all her things away in her pack, but the Captain’s hand ensnared her slender wrist in a halting grip. He turned her around to face him, and, for the first time, Helena saw a genuine smile on his face.

“Thank you, Solstice,” He said, hoping she understood how valuable her efforts have been or how the people of Midgard would sing her name with praise when it was all said and done. She was the hero they waited so long for, and, now that she was there, the Captain wanted Midgard to see what he saw in her. He wanted them to understand how blessed they were to be in the same space as the one who would deliver them from danger.

“Of course, Captain,” Helena broke out into a caring smile, and she laced her hand with his, squeezing it. Her body started to grow heavy, and she crawled back over to her bedroll, collapsing on it with her eyes fluttered closed before her body finished lying down.

Her eyes flew open again, and she rolled out of her bed, a moment before the alarm started chirping with its wake-up call. Helena hit the snooze button and stretched, walking toward the bathroom to start her day. She snatched up the bubblegum pink scrubs resting on the chair of her desk, which she passed on her way into the bathroom. She flipped on the lights and approached the sink, her eyes staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

“Only twelve hours before I can return to Midgard,” Helena reminded the woman in the mirror, using a countdown to keep herself energized through a grueling day. That, however, was not the only thing she was eager to get back to. Knowing the Captain awaited her served as an incentive to return to her dreams, an oddly newfound sanctuary for her.


	3. Together Through the Night

The journey never eased up, making the wolf incident only the beginning of difficulties for Helena and the Captain. The terrain grew harsher, riddled with dangers and potential mortal peril. Creatures roamed the wilderness on the hunt for prey, the weather conditions threatened to kill the adventurers from exposure, and landscape issues posed risks of bodily injury from steep hikes or falling. When night fell, the Captain and Helena would seek out the safest location to set up shelter for the night and took to laying their bedrolls next to each other. The close contact exchanged body heat between them, and they shared the Captain’s extra cloak as a blanket draped over top. They still performed guard duty in shifts, and Helena found it extra tricky not to fall asleep with the presence of a warm body beside her beckoning her to rest.

There was no time for resting as they were reaching the final stretch before getting to the base of the mountain with the spirit guide that would determine their entry. Neither of them knew what they might do if turned away at the bottom of the mountain, but neither seemed keen on finding out or believed in the faint chance that might happen.

The next of the challenges came not even a day after the wolf attack when Helena returned to Midgard. In their path was the end of the road marked by a canyon boasting a deep, dark fall with no end in sight and no other route to cross to the other side. The bridge that once stood there was split in half, and the ropes frayed. Helena, not satisfied with their choices, spent a good while skipping through her father’s journal when she stumbled upon a spell that bestowed wings temporarily, but the execution was incredibly difficult.

She gave herself a running start and careened toward the edge of the chasm, forcing an exhale to push through her lips as the edge drew closer and closer. Her body had other plans, though by stopping her before she could plunge from the ledge and she understood why. Her wings failed to activate, making her unsure of what went wrong. She did the spell precisely as written down and couldn’t figure out her error, more focused on her potential mistake than the fact she nearly tumbled from

The Captain was not keen on her trying that again, seeing the risk involved to be too high. Instead, he and Helena brainstormed up a risky idea, but the only one they could think of. Using the bow and arrow the Captain carried along with them, he tied one end of a long rope to the arrow. He aimed and released the arrow, watching it sink into the edge of the cliff on the opposite. The rope was long enough to stretch across the fifteen-foot chasm, and they secured their end underneath a massive rock. The rope drew taut like a bowstring and effectively formed a tightrope for them to cross with two options for the crossing: walking across or climbing across the underside of the rope.

Both options were riddled with equal danger, but choices were limited, and time was a luxury neither could afford.

Helena voted to go first, and she left her rucksack with the Captain as she chose to walk across the rope. What little she remembered from her childhood in gymnastics vaguely refreshed itself, and she sucked in a deep breath as she stepped onto the teetering rope. She felt the pressure and sway under each step but refused to freeze up or panic because the moment she did that, she sealed her own fate.

She held her arms out to the side and maintained steady breathing with each step she took, one at a time. No outside distractions broke through her intense focus, she would never allow it. Her pacing was consistent and relatively unhurried, knowing moving too fast might rock the rope. She nimbly moved across the rope and only released her breath when she touched down on solid ground.

“Okay! I made it. Do you think you can pass the pack over?” Helena questioned and the Captain nodded, winding up his arm. Taking the sealed rucksack in one hand, gripped by the topmost strap, the Captain gave a sharp, audible exhale and cleared the chasm with one forceful throw. Helena reached out and caught the rucksack, feeling relieved with it back in her hands. She set it down on the floor beside her, needing a moment to catch her breath.

With Helena safely on the other side, it was the Captain’s turn to attempt the rope across. Strapping his bag to his body in the most secure fashion, the Captain seated himself along the ledge with his body next to the rope. Grabbing with both hands, spread apart for more distance, he slid off the ledge and hung above the chasm by the strength of his grip. Helena refused to turn away or take her eyes off the Captain while he attempted the crossing. The Captain deftly swung across the rope with the same dexterity of a young child trying the monkey bars, which propelled him to around the halfway point. The Captain reached for the next swing, but his hand fell short of the rope and the other slackened enough for his grip to fall from the rope. He grunted in surprise and tried to grab the rope before he tumbled into the canyon, but he couldn’t. Helena screamed in fear.

“Captain!” She gasped and before her horrified mind could grasp what was happening, she sprinted over the ledge and dove off the side after him. The rush of wind whistled in her ears and she plummeted down beside him, somehow unafraid despite the fact she was falling down into a dark cavern. The world around them lightened where there should’ve been pitch blackness enveloping them but a glance over her shoulder and Helena realized that a shimmering pair of wings emerged from her back. The wings were working! Making eye contact with the Captain, Helena scooped him by the underarms and slowed their fall. Face to face, she could see the relief on the Captain’s face, and she gave him a soft laugh of assurance as he held onto her tight. She willed herself to rocket back toward the sky above and safely clear the chasm. They zoomed past the edge and into the air, marveling at how their stomachs dropped in weightlessness. Helena and the Captain crashed down in a tangle of limbs, but unharmed from the harrowing incident. Both were breathing hard and Helena felt the addition of her shoulders trembling from the rush of adrenaline. Her body reacted before she did and trusted itself enough to work out the issue with the wings—coming in when it counted.

“Are you alright?” The question from the Captain surprised Helena since she was thinking the same thing, but for him not her. She blinked; he was asking if she was okay? What about him?

“You’re the one that nearly plummeted to your death,” Helena reminded him, sounding genuinely concerned about him and the Captain could see the worry in her eyes. If the wings hadn’t pulled through, they both would’ve died tragically. Midgard would fall to the darkness and the Resistance would lose another leader with the Captain gone. 

“Can’t fault a man for asking.” The Captain somehow managed a clipped laugh in the face of danger survived, which drew a small smile from Helena. Neither knew whether it was okay to laugh about nearly dying, but no one could stop them or tell them otherwise. The circumstances of the whole quest were outlandish enough yet normalized by the world they lived in when Helena traveled over from the waking world through the passage of sleep.

First was the wolf incident, then this fiasco. The Captain probably owed Helena his life twice over for her fast thinking. He better start making up for that soon. By that point, neither Helena nor the Captain was immune to attracting danger like magnets and their vigilance for danger increased. He climbed onto his feet and held his hand out to Helena, helping her back up. As they retrieved their packs, the Captain gave the map a glance, “Over the hill should be our final obstacle before reaching the gate with the spirit.”

“Good,” Helena nodded and the two resumed their adventure, following the marked path within the journal. Thus far, the travel tended to fall downward as Midgard rested on a heightened elevation of a former mountain leveled in half by the powers of Thor Odinson, during a fierce battle with evil. Before the Severed Mountains could be ascended, she and the Captain must reach the bottom of the landscape marred by remnants of violent battles and mystical horrors prepared to deliver an untimely end.

Eventually, the Captain and Helena arrived at another cliffside and their final descent before the base of the mountains. Helena overheard the thundering rush of water and remembered that they would need to cross the Topaz River, notorious for the swift currents that swept many off their feet. She swallowed back roughly and stopped herself more than once from bothering the Captain or distracting him from his planning. A little water never hurt and if she didn’t want to swim, then she better cross fast.

Glancing down, she spotted the golden gate standing between the base of the Severed Mountains and knew that was where they needed to go. The last obstacle was scaling down to the bottom. From what she could see, a small ledge ran just underneath them and acted as their starting point to the rocks that could be footholds in the side of the cliff. She pulled the rucksack from her shoulders and dropped it straight down to the bottom. The bag landed at the edge of the riverbank, barely missing the water.

“A smart idea, Sol,” The Captain agreed and he did the same with his bag, planning for the two to collect them once safely at the base of the river. With both bags securely resting at the bottom, he and Helena began their descent down the cliffside. They scoot across the ledge with narrow margins with patience and no sense of hurry, not unlike Helena on the tightrope. The Captain encouraged Helena to find the footholds first and he would climb down behind her.

Helena started descending down the side of the cliff when she picked a location with decent footholds. She sat along the edge and carefully lowered herself down, firmly jamming her boots into cracks within the rock. Helena held her breath sucked up against her ribs and caught herself afraid to breathe a few times. She scaled down the rocky nightmare that was the cliff to the river below, cautiously testing out footholds before she balanced her full weight on them, and the Captain descended beside her, albeit slightly above her since she started before him.

Not wanting to worry the Captain, Helena kept quiet and refused to say that she was afraid. When she got nervous, she noticed that her magic became fickle and short-circuited. So focused on her thoughts, Helena tenderly placed too much pressure on a selected foothold, which fell out from underneath her. A yelp escaped her, and the Captain whirled to face her to see her teeter backward dangerously. The Captain threw out his hand toward her to grab but their fingertips barely brushed as she slipped from reach. Helena braced for impact as her body collided with the inky black water of the river’s rapids and she went underneath, panicking the whole way. She forced herself to resurface and made blurry eye contact with the Captain, suspended on the side of the cliff but seeming like he was climbing toward her.

“I can’t swim!” Helena screamed up and she frantically clawed at the water around with the desperation of a dead man walking. She pushed against the waves, but the battle of strength was hers to lose. Her head slipped under the water’s surface and the rushing of the current knocked off her sense of orientation. She tried to scream for help, but water invaded her lungs when the waves submerged her. Closing her eyes, she attempted to swim for the surface even though the currents were dredging her deeper into the depths and her body recklessly slammed into something hard, unforgiving, and sturdy.

“No, no, I’m not going to let you drown!” The Captain muttered as he dangerously careened down the rocks, making a path for himself down to the banks of the river. Somehow, he scaled down twenty feet of rocks in under a minute but didn’t stop to catch his breath. He raced to the river and jumped into the frothing water, a strong swimmer and confident in his ability to find her. Diving underneath the waves, the Captain forced his eyes open and saw Helena floating a few feet in front of him. She wasn’t struggling against the waves and looked limp or unconscious.

Using the current to his advantage, the Captain propelled forward to grab Helena in his arms and pushed up from a rock to break the surface. He took in a gasping breath of air and fought against the rapids to reach the thin strip of riverbed standing between the edge of the rocks and the water. He crawled onto land with Helena protectively held in his arms and he laid her down on the flattest piece of land. His instincts kicked in to give her CPR, seeing no response to stimuli from her.

“Sol, I don’t know if you can hear me in there, but everything is going to be alright,” The Captain assured the unconscious Helena and tilted her head back to clear her airways. He listened for breath to find none, and he shook his head. He had no choice to avoid CPR. Pinching her nose and tilting her head back, the Captain pressed his lips against hers. He kept a tight seal over her mouth to deliver proper rescue breaths and prayed that she wouldn’t be upset by him putting his lips on her. After five breaths, he pulled back and the next step was to deliver chest compressions. He laced his fingers together, left hand over right, and pressed down on her chest to a steady tempo while he breathlessly snapped out a count.

Looking down at Helena’s unconscious, pale face and her drenched body put his stomach into unbearable knots. He promised that he would take care of her and that was not a promise he intended on breaking whatsoever.

“Come on, Sol. You’re a fighter in there! C’mon!” The Captain dove back in and delivered another two rescue breaths, feeling some warmth in Helena and hoping for a goddamn miracle. His hands returned to her chest and resumed the compressions, which he planned to repeat until he broke his body or went blue in the face. However, he felt a suction beneath his calloused hands and realized that Helena was breathing again. The Captain quickly yet delicately eased her onto her side as Helena’s body, eyes still closed, shuddered and vomited up the water circulating in her lungs. She gave several coughs as the water expulsed from her lips and her body shivered from the sudden change. The Captain sprinted over to their packs and ran back to Helena, holding out the spare cloak they used for a blanket to drape over her. When Helena stopped coughing and resumed natural breath intake, after the Captain kept her airway open, he rolled her onto his back and cradled her in his arms with special attention to her head. He had no clue if she hit her head while under the water and needed to check her for other injuries.

“Hey there,” The Captain greeted softly to Helena, who was coming back from the clutches of unconsciousness. She stirred slightly in his arms, but a firm hand kept her still and from jostling around too much with her survived trauma. He pushed back the slick, wet hairs stuck to her paled forehead away and cleared her vision when she decided to open her eyes. Not sure what else to do, he chose to re-orientate her by talking. “Almost thought I lost you back there.”

“This is the last time I ever go swimming.” Helena murmured groggily while her eyes fluttered open, the brilliant shade of blue stunning him for the second time. They were so bright and full of life; they were unlike anything the Captain had ever seen. Helena gave a small cough as her lungs recovered from the CPR and the near-drowning.

“I think that would be for the best. I didn’t want you to- I am thankful everything’s okay,” The Captain whispered while Helena weakly reached for his face, ignoring his protesting expression. She gave him a kind caress of his cheek. He was worried about her? How touching—especially after all they survived through on their journey thus far. She wished she could stay and thank him more for what he did, but the beckoning from the other side reached her in full swing and she could never remain beyond what the waking world dictated. As much as she grew fond of her growing place and sense of purpose in Midgard, there was a whole other world that needed her

“I feel the real world calling me. I’ll be back.” Helena promised and she flashed him a weary smile as her body faded as it had plenty of times before, leaving the Captain on the riverbank and cradling the empty air. He sighed, ultimately relieved. Managing to get up, he planned on taking a break and waiting for Helena to return. So, he took the cloak back to their bags and planned on a riverside camp for that evening. But knowing Helena made it through alright put an unstoppable smile on his face.

* * *

Nightfall saw Helena return to Midgard, fading back to the riverside camp the Captain assembled all on his lonesome and occupied in the land embraced by peace. Helena exhaled softly and cast a glance up at the stars, recalling the thank you she rehearsed endlessly under her breath while at work. She knew the other nurses stared at her funny, but she ignored them because she wanted to get it right. A casual “hey, thanks for not letting me die” didn’t convey the magnitude of what Helena wanted to tell the Captain after that morning.

When seeing the Captain, facing the firelight and with his back facing her, she quietly approached as not to startle him; the last thing she wanted was a sword drawn on her. She stepped around the gravel to avoid the incriminating crunching, which would echo from under the soles of her worn boots, and that proved to be a Herculean task of epic proportions. She nearly giggled at that thought, chiding herself for considering tiptoeing toward her companion harder than defying death. Despite her laughable, somewhat foolish musings, Helena managed to do the act and softly claimed a place on the open rock beside the Captain, who stared into the fire. Without glancing her way, the Captain gave a respectful nod of greeting and rested the small dagger of hers he was sharpening on a small, portable slab of a whetstone. How kind of him to tend to her weapons during her absence. 

“Welcome back, Sol,” The Captain greeted, his voice notably lightening when running over her name with the peculiar fondness of old friends. Did he consider them friends, bonded by this journey? Helena pondered that while at a loss for what she considered him.

_An ally? Perhaps._

_A stranger with the same goals? No, they were too close for that._

_Friends then? Yet, that still didn’t sit right._

Unbeknownst to the contemplation rummaging about in his companion’s mind, the Captain returned the dagger back to her rucksack and the whetstone to his. He rubbed his hands close to the fire to warm them as they numbed from the onset of the nighttime chill from the mountains. He drew his hands back when the heat radiating off the flames licking so dangerously to his skin, not foolish enough to play with fire for the sake of prolonged warmth.

“I promised I would be back,” Helena reminded him with a tiny inkling of friendly teasing hidden within her words, continuing their growing familiarity. Such playfulness hardly slipped past the Captain’s notice, rather astute and startlingly witty. His confidence tended to absorb all the notice from those observing from the outside, but there was more to him than met the eye. Beneath his stern exterior were layers to a man that Helena desperately wished to uncover if he let her.

“Heh,” The Captain managed a small laugh, seeing as she got him there. Her promise from before upheld and her returned presence greatly easing him. He glanced down slightly, “I guess you did.”

“What’s that?” She inquired and pointed to the medallion the Captain fiddled with, twisting it in his hands absentmindedly. The gesture appeared to comfort him, but Helena realized that it happened to be the medallion itself which brought comfort. She cocked her head to the side and studied what she could see of it, noting the luster of gold and some kind of engraving in the center of the side pressed against the Captain’s skin.

“This belonged to my mother. She wore it religiously when I was a kid. Before she passed, she gave it to me and made me promise to take good care of it. When I asked why, she told me that she believed it to be touched by luck or the hand of God—something divine and otherworldly. She said that whoever wore this medallion, that nothing bad would befall them and should protect them from great danger.” The Captain, harboring some nostalgia to his recollection of his mother, shared with Helena and without saying anything else, he grabbed the medallion by the chain. He lifted it up, over, and off his neck and head to hold in his hand. 

“What are you-?” Helena questioned, her own stammering cut her off and jumbled her thoughts into an incoherent mess. She glanced up and their eyes met, contrasting her surprise with a sharp pang of realization in her gut. _Oh._ He wasn’t-

“I want you to have it.” The Captain declared, pressing it into her hand and gently closing her fist around it, the warmth of the medallion striking her down to her core. She didn’t understand! This clearly held value to him, and he was giving to her without reason.

“Me? But Captain, this belonged to your mother. I couldn’t possibly take this,” Helena protested but the Captain refused to let her return it. He contemplated the move in great detail during his solitude when Helena unwillingly returned to the waking world. He felt a calling on his heart and he believed his mother was sending him a message. Helena needed the medallion; she deserved the protection of the emblem.

“If I knew my mother, then I know she would want me to give it to you. I feel she still guides me through everything, even when she is gone. She’s telling me to give this to you,” The Captain reasoned, and Helena opened her hand to study the gold medallion in better depth. Her eyes traced the initials “SGR” engraved into the metal and the simplistic design on the front of interconnected swirls so pleasing to the eye. Honestly, it was beautiful—and it was hers. If the Captain was so keen on her holding onto it for him, she could oblige his request. Helena lifted the medallion over her head and slipped it on, feeling the Captain’s eyes on her as she did so. He studied the way the medallion hung around her neck and paired with the amulet she wore, complimenting the other. It suited her, much more than it ever did for him.

“Thank you for saving me today,” Helena meekly whispered, unsure of how to proceed after that twist. Her being at a loss for words was not a new sensation, but she felt a profound lack of knowing what to say. She swallowed thickly and fidgeted with her hands in her lap, telegraphing anxiety through her body. The fact she nearly died was not lost on her and she stared her savior in the eye, unsure of how to proceed. She was spectacularly underequipped to face how that realization caused her to feel or the way his intent gaze painted a hot blush down her face.

“There’s no need to thank me. We’re a team and I would never leave you in danger,” The Captain assured and he glanced over at Helena, who played with the medallion hanging around her neck. In the light of the crackling fire, her features glowed under the oranges and yellows and reds of the open flame in a way that he could hardly pull his eyes away from. She fondly held the medallion and her father’s amulet in the same hand and felt the warmth touch her. The Captain glanced back in the depth of the fire, “Besides, you’ve saved my ass several times and I owe you my life. If that means I pay you back by saving you every now and then, consider that what I’ll do.”

Helena looked away from the fire and glanced at the Captain’s profile, studying the weariness painted on his face. That day brought many challenges and he deserved some rest. She placed her hand on his thigh and predictably drew his gaze. She met his eyes with hers and brushed his thigh with her thumb soothingly.

“You must be so tired. Come, you need rest,” Helena cooed, and she pulled the Captain along, bringing him to their bedrolls already set up. The Captain didn’t even attempt to protest with Helena, seeing as he was exhausted but waited for her to return. He willingly followed, not putting up a struggle, and watched Helena prepare the bedding to encompass both bedrolls. She sat at the end of one and smiled up at him, puzzling him slightly. 

Helena pat her lap and the Captain, after some stunned staring, laid his head in her lap and she draped the cloak over him, not needing it since she would be taking the first watch. The fire and the heated blush reaching from her cheeks to her neck should be enough to keep her warm. She offered herself as a pillow with no understanding of why, but she damn well refused to take it back now. She pulled out her journal and busied herself with it, giving the Captain the privacy to fall asleep without her gawkishly staring at him. She lost herself within the pages of her father’s exploits once more and the next time she glanced away from the pages; she pushed the journal to the side. She took in the Captain’s breathing, even and quiet. He was asleep.

Her fingers reflexively curled around the medallion he gifted her, still honored by such a meaningful gesture. His mother’s medallion… the idea of it brought tears to her eyes. Helena tilted her head to admire the sleeping man resting in her lap, his face darkened as he turned away from the fire. She traced his face affectionately and brushed the stray hairs drooping over his face, clearing his face.

“Sleep well, Captain,” Helena remarked to him, knowing he couldn’t hear her but not minding.

* * *

Passing through the gates at the base of the Severed Mountains and beginning their steep ascent into the winding mountain pass, which would hopefully lead them to Lightbringer and the final resting place of Queen Solstice of Midgard, came easier than initially anticipated for the Captain or Helena. The spirit of the mountain, a ghastly pale ram with milky white eyes and sky-blue wool, took one sniff at Helena’s compassionately outstretched hand and stepped to the side. The Captain nearly swore the ram bowed before her in reverence and respect, playfully snorting when she gave a smooth pet.

The two stuck close together, linking hands when traveling along the road and the random bursts of fog rolled in to eclipse them both. The Captain relentlessly carried along with his sword out of its sheath and in hand, should anything attempt to ambush them on the road. During the fog, the two quickly pulled off to the side and ducked into one of the many cave-like nooks littering the mountain's side to wait it out. While resting, they replenished their energy with some light snacking and drinking from their newly filled canteens. Neither knew what to feel as they drew closer and closer to their end goal, whether that be uncertainty or relief. Instead of lingering on the emotions simmering beneath the surface and the unspoken tension looming, much like the fog, the two scrambled to follow the instructions in the journal down to the last, dirty detail.

Lightbringer awaited them somewhere in this mountain and they were determined to bring it home, freeing Midgard from underneath darkness’ control.

Around two days dredged by of navigating the mountain pass and searching for Solstice’s tomb wore on the Captain and Helena, who were feeling the months of travel wearing on them. If Helena’s calculations were correct (which they probably were), then the start of their expedition came around three months ago. Alone together for three months, the Captain and Helena couldn’t believe how much transpired and knew the things they witnessed would connect them like a red string of fabled lovers. That, and if they should survive, this adventure would make for quite the entertaining tavern story to share.

Toward the end of the second day is when Helena pulled the Captain to the side, her eyes wide and eager. She frantically pointed to the page of a sketch, which visually described the entrance to the tomb, walled up by stones but still sporting the faint outline of what seemed like a cartoony heart.

“Look up there! On the ridge to the right of us,” Helena pointed up to the Captain’s right and he craned his neck for a better view of where Helena was directing his attention. Sure enough, much to his amazement, he spotted the matching rock formation above them on a ledge. To other adventurers, the sight would hardly stick out of the ordinary. But the Captain understood the deeper implication and studied the area, looking for a way up there when he noticed a curvature of a ramp bending around little ways up the path.

“We can take that ramp up to the entrance,” The Captain pointed out their way in and Helena nodded, comfortable with that course of action seeing as the ramp provided ample space to walk. Reasonably, she and the Captain were warier of narrow ledges and spaces considering their travel thus far marked several accidents revolving those features of the land. He cracked his knuckles and tried to brainstorm a way to bypass the rocks and when he came up with nothing that wouldn’t result in pulverized bones or any other form of bodily injury, he quirked a brow at Helena. “You have a way inside, Sol?”

“I have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Helena promised, curling her fist and giving a teasing flex of her bicep. In all honesty, she did have a few spells lined up as her father admitted to sealing up the cavern before planning to return and retrieve Lightbringer, only he died before he could.

“Alright, up we go!” The Captain declared, prepared for the worst when the two breached the tomb of Solstice, the first Queen of Midgard, and prayed for a blessing over him and Helena to the one person he trusted above all. His mother never let him down in life, and he knew she hadn’t in death either. With that, Helena walked over to the ramp and started the hike upward and the Captain, armed with his sword, brought up the rear to keep on the lookout for anyone following them. The ascent was rather short as the tomb was placed inconspicuously among the cropping of rocks in the pass of the Severed Mountains. If the Captain and Helena didn’t have a full-proof map detailing which turns to take and decisions to make, they too would’ve likely walked past it.

Eventually, they reached the opening where a stack of boulders blockaded the entrance from the outside world and the Captain glanced knowingly ahead of him, expecting his companion to work whatever magic she had up her sleeve. It was up to Helena. Sensing the expectation radiating from the Captain, she steadied herself and called on the magical energy hovering around her for a source of power.

“Watch this!” Helena cheerfully told the Captain and she lifted her dominant hand into the air, curling it into a tight fist. Upon doing that, her hand encased in golden light and the light transformed into a see-through, armored gauntlet that moved with her hand. The Captain swore that it was holographic until he watched Helena tap it and heard the metallic clink like regular armor. She gave the Captain a giggle and bright smile as she turned toward the rock formation, pulled back her dominant hand, and delivered a cross-style punch that shattered through the boulders. The rain of rock bits and debris flew forward and littered in a pile around the newly opened entrance. The Captain’s jaw dropped, and he shook his head to snap out the trance he found himself in, whistling from how impressed he was.

Helena grabbed the Captain by the wrist and pulled him into the tomb, wanting to tease that there was no time for gawking or milling about. They had a sword to retrieve. The first thing Helena noticed that, even with the new light filtering into the cavern that housed the tomb, the room remained surprisingly dark. Helena stepped inside and summoned the flames to her hand and although they were significantly more robust, they hardly provided the coverage she needed for visibility. The Captain was not far behind her and crossed the threshold into the tomb of Solstice. As soon as he cleared the entryway, a ring of torches around the perimeter of the room flickered to light and the hole they entered through sealed itself back up. The Captain whirled on his heel and pushed against the stone to find it solidified.

“There’s no going back now,” The Captain remarked and the two exchanged glances with each other, unsure whether or not they were prepared to face the possible threats awaiting them through the dim lighting of the torches.

“No going back,” Helena echoed and glanced ahead where she spotted the black sarcophagus centered on an altar. There inlaid the remains of Solstice and, hopefully, Lightbringer. Standing between her, the Captain and the shrine adorned by ancient-looking candles and cobwebs lining the stairs was a mosaic pattern on the floor. All the symbols were relatively the same as far as she could see and when she approached, she saw no distinct differences in the panels. So, she stepped on one as a test.

A sharp whizzing sound caught her attention and she felt the Captain move from behind her, his hand entering her left periphery. She heard him exhale audibly and realized his chest pressed up against her back, leaving no space between them. Daring to turn her head to the left, she saw what had him so nervous. In his hand, an arrow suspended and if he had been any slower… it would’ve impaled her in the neck and killed her. Her heart raced and her body nearly went limp upon registering the near-death experience, so the Captain pulled her back from the mosaic to strategize a new approach.

“Did your dad leave behind any clues on how to solve this without—you know—risking your life on chance?” The Captain inquired, not willing to bet on his reflexes snagging another arrow out of the air before it potentially harmed Helena. He was praying for a yes, but the frown on her lips told him he was going to hear a no.

“Unfortunately, no. He didn’t attempt to explore the cavern before he died. His writings detail his theories but not anything concrete or guaranteed to be helpful.” Helena disappointedly shook her head. Around the final leg of their journey, she finished reading through her father’s comprehensive journal. The spells to break through the boulder barrier was his last entry on the quest for Lightbringer, which meant that she and the Captain were on their own.

“Shit,” The Captain cursed and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think of an idea of how to test the mosaic tiles without putting himself or Helena in danger. After some failure to come up with anything remotely close to workable, the Captain sighed exhaustedly. “Okay, we need a plan.”

“I have an idea—a crazy one but it’s better than nothing. I’m going to call out to Solstice’s spirit. There’s a reason we were allowed to pass the Guardian and I think Solstice wants us here. I think she understands why we’ve come.” Helena theorized and she knew that she might completely insane, spouting the ramblings of a crazy woman. But nothing about her or this quest could be chalked up to coincidence anymore, not to her. There was a deeper meaning here and she knew that she played a part in it. She waited for the Captain to say something or protest, but he merely sighed and offered her the most tired smile she had ever seen—and she worked graveyard shifts at the hospital.

“That’s- it’s a long shot, but if you trust your gut, then I trust you.” The Captain promised her, which Helena appreciated. Before this crazy quest, she never felt comfortable being a leader and leading other people. But now? She felt emboldened in her skills as a leader and that was, in no small part, due to the Captain. He exuded charisma and confidence belonging to a leader from how he ran the Resistance, but he often deferred judgment to her and trusted her. Not to get all sappy or sentimental (which was her weakness), but she really needed the kind of trust the Captain had in her.

“Hold this?” Helena held up her trusty rucksack with pleading eyes and desperately trying not to crack into a smile, much less peals of laughter. She trusted Solstice to connect with her and believed that she would deliver Helena through the danger. Plus, she had grown fond of the Captain and would like to see him unharmed through the insane trials they faced while on the road.

“Always.” The Captain nearly laughed and made a mention of how he seemed more like a pack mule than a useful member of the questing duo. At one point, Helena told him that he was meant to stand there, look pretty, and move things with his big, strong biceps and he honestly hadn’t stopped finding that hilarious. He took the rucksack from Helena and she stepped up to the edge of the mosaic panels. Fiddling with her amulet in one hand and nervously tapping at her thigh with the other, Helena channeled the spirited energy floating around her and searched for any sign of Solstice’s essence among that.

“Queen Solstice, I don’t know why you brought me here to Midgard, but I understand that you need me to help restore the light where the darkness slinked in. Please let me help you. Help me by granting me access to Lightbringer so I can vanquish your enemy in the darkness.” Helena pleaded with the spirit of the former queen and an indistinguishable amount of time ticked by before her amulet reacted. She watched it glow and levitate, pulling her a certain direction; she knew Solstice was coming through. Helena blindly followed the amulet through the mosaic riddle and with each correct step, she grew more relieved. With the swiftness of the arrow that nearly killed her, she reached the opposite side of the path. Her successful completion resulted in the mosaics sinking and dissolving into the stone, rendered harmless.

Helena raced up the stairs and to the altar where the sarcophagus rested with the remains of Queen Solstice of Midgard. She, using all her strength, pushed the lid off the top and revealed the alabaster recreation of Solstice’s likeness laying inside. Resting in the statue’s arms was a golden blade, glowing from tip of the blade to the bottom of the hilt, and made of the most exquisite craftsmanship. Reaching into the sarcophagus for it, she touched and sensed the power of the falling star core which made Lightbringer. Whispering a soft thank you, she wiggled Lightbringer free of its resting place and carried it gently in her arms. She felt unable to stop marveling at the beauty of the blade.

“Helena, watch out!” The Captain exclaimed from behind her, snapping Helena from her trance and getting her to whirl around. Doing that, she spotted the pair of gnarled, dark hands with razor-sharp claws emerging from the dark and Helena, thinking with her body before her easily petrified mind, dove to the side. She barely dodged the hands clasping together in a move that likely would’ve crushed her. The Captain abandoned their rucksacks and unsheathed his sword, racing to Helena’s side to help her back onto her feet. His nose flared and eyes narrowed, “What in hell’s name is that?”

Staring into the darkness, Helena and the Captain watched as the hands revealed to be attached to a large body, with bony and emaciated limbs, a row of sharpened fangs, two curled ram’s horns, and a pair of inhumanly green eyes blinking back at them. The creature was unlike anything the Captain or Helena witnessed, nothing resembling any creature from the bestiary from her father’s home. The beast roared and lumbered toward the two of them and Helena heard herself yell “scramble” as she and the Captain rolled away from the creature’s path. With Helena carrying Lightbringer, she was the obvious target for the beast. However, the Captain wouldn’t let her become bait for whatever this creature was.

“Get away from her!” The Captain demanded and the creature, provoked by his voice, turned away from Helena and focused its sights onto him. The Captain gave a good chase for a while until he found himself backed up against the wall by the creature, boxing him in to finish him off. The creature stormed over to the Captain while he tried to scramble onto his feet, but Helena refused to let him get hurt.

“Hey, look at me!” Helena exclaimed and waved her arms frantically to draw the creature’s attention onto her and the ploy worked. She watched with horror as the creature ambled toward her and decided it was now or never. “Time to see what you can do. Solstice, I call onto your powers!” She chanted and a white-hot glow washed over her body, eclipsing the room in a flash of white. When the light died down, Helena looked a little different. Her hair glowed bright gold and flickered upright like live flames, her eyes blanked to untouched white, her body glowed the same shade of gold as the daily rebirth of the morning sun, and a pair of angelic-style wings sprawled out from her back. Standing where Helena once was, Solstice returned to the world she once ruled over.

“Wow,” The Captain whispered aloud, stunned virtually speechless by the transformation. He watched on as Helena, levitating and glowing in a way that no human could dare to dream, raised the sword, and raced for the creature at unfathomable speeds. The creature staggered backward when Helena slipped through its defenses to land a solid punch through the abdomen, swept its feet out from under it, and stabbed her sword down through its chest. The creature gave a feeble gurgle and went very still.

Then there was a quiet, almost resigned whisper that echoed through the chamber, saying “goodbye, my lovely queen,” and the defeat of the creature spurred the entrance to open once again, revealing the Severed Mountains and the extensive view of Midgard in the distance. The glow faded from around Helena’s body and she slumped forward, resting on Lightbringer to keep her steady. Her breathing came hard and fast, ringing in her ears. She felt two strong hands grab her and she reached out for the Captain while coming to terms with their success.

Lightbringer was theirs.

* * *

Standing around the table felt odd without the Captain there, but the Resistance would carry on in his absence. The Man of Iron occupied the head seat and exchanged glances with his compatriots, all concerned for the Captain and Solstice. They received sporadic updates of their progress through Falcon’s trained messenger bird who carried messages between the Resistance back in Midgard and from wherever the two were on their adventure. The exchanges were brief, coded material to keep from falling into the wrong hands.

“Are we ready to start tonight’s meeting?” The Winter’s Soldier questioned, pinching the bridge of his nose after Falcon made a stupid joke. Leave it to his partner to try and lighten the mood with a corny joke.

“Red isn’t here yet,” Hawk’s Eye mentioned, perking up from where he absentmindedly fussed with an arrowhead. In his other hand, a short yet sharpened blade used to sharpen the point and edges of the arrowhead. There was a concern there. It was never like her to be late and she didn’t miss meetings.

“Lingering is far from wise,” The Widow reminded but rubbed Hawk’s shoulder sympathetically as she knew he looked out for Red in an older brother way. The group tended to be protective of her because of her background and she was the youngest of the Resistance fighters. The others understood the concern but none wanted to believe anything terrible happened to one of their own or jump the gun on the matter. Whatever small chatter rose in the wake of the revelation, whether assurances or excuses, ceased when the Man of Iron banged his palm flat against the table’s top. All eyes settled back on him, standing at the head of the table, and their attention was his.

“We can get started without her and fill her in as to what she missed when she gets here,” The Man of Iron decided, agreeing with Widow’s assessment. They knew that guards were always on the prowl through Midgard’s streets and continuously tracking down the second Resistance on the orders of the King. The people refused to rat out anyone they believed to be part of the movement and those who were money hungry enough to do so were often incorrect as to who the movement employed, so reports were hard to verify or believe.

However, their luck decided to run out.

During the middle of the briefing, the slam of the door being kicked open interrupted whoever was speaking as a swarm of armed guards infiltrated the room and started shouting. None of the Resistance panicked externally and refrained from showing fear. If this was the end, then they regretted nothing about their defiance of the King.

“Step away from the table! Hands up and any sudden movements won’t be tolerated!” The head guard ordered, his tone conveying there was to be no attempts to escape or fight, and no one moved. Instead of waiting for them, the head guard approached the Man of Iron and slammed him down against the table with his hands held in a bind behind his back. The other guards did the same with the others, prompting glares from them. The head guard growled out, seeing the Resistance scum finally paying penance for their involvement in treasonous acts. King Lysias would be thrilled, “You all are under arrest for conspiring against King Lysias and his high court. Anything you like to say?”

“Kiss my ass,” Hawk snickered, the first to disrupt the silence and that seemed enough to encourage the others to throw their jabs in as well. Ranging from the subtle insults of the Man of Iron and Widow to the outright clowning from Falcon, none of the Resistance members went quietly or without something to say. Through the insults lobbed at the masked guards by the Resistance fighters and the easygoing smirks, no one admitted to any wrongdoing.

The guards, increasingly frustrated with their demeanor but non-compliance with admitting their associations for a slam-dunk conviction decided to intimidate them into singing like canaries. So, each of the Resistance members were cuffed and escorted through the packed bar, dragged by those who knew them as good people. Incensed by the scene, the patrons rose up and began jeering at the guards relentlessly. Some even got physical with the extra guards, unburdened by prisoners in the Resistance members. Alcohol and anger over unjust tyranny never mixed well, influencing the breakout of a brawl. Stark Tavern turned into the battleground for fists, words, and tankards of ale to be thrown. Guards, who symbolized the rule of a king who cared not for his people, found themselves pummeled by the unruly mob rising up from the common man and barely managed to drag the prisoners out of the racket. They intended to line them up and march them back to the palace, unaware that they were missing one of them.

The Red Witch daintily jogged toward Stark Tavern, cursing that her shift at the apothecary shop ran past the intended time and she was late to the meeting. She hoped that the others started the session or heard positive correspondence from Solstice or Captain. When the news broke that they recovered Lightbringer successfully, the Resistance felt freedom come so close that they could taste it. So, they counted down the days and nights until the arrival of their liberation for a homecoming as sweet as the summer morning.

A small smile graced her lips, a rarity these days. For a while, Red gave up hope on restoring Midgard to some semblance of peace as it seemed nothing could reverse the trajectory the kingdom followed. Each year progressively worsened and living in the town that felt its suffocation left little hope for her.

Solstice’s arrival on the winds of change, accompanied by weaponized knowledge with enough power to dethrone and end Lysias, restored that hope. Perhaps she was an idealistic woman who believed that one person might carry the ability to change things, but she tuned into the exploits of Gryphon, Solstice’s father. He was only one man and yet, his results proved that one man—or woman, in Solstice’s case—could inspire others to the call of revolution and topple the oppressive rulership of kings who believed themselves to be gods. She needed to believe that or else she would have nothing, a dangerous place to be when backed into a corner.

She rounded the corner standing between her and the tavern and when she did, she immediately wished she hadn’t. Swallowing back a gasp of fear, the Red Witch pulled herself back around the corner from which she rounded and her back pressed up against the wall. She knew what she saw and her stomach dropped when realizing what might happen to her friends. Her parents and her twin brother, Pietro, were executed by King Lysias years prior for treasonous activity and she knew the same fate awaited her friends.

Red peered around the corner, cautiously to avoid a guard sighting her and decided to interrogate why she kept staring at them funny. It wouldn’t be the first time a guard abused their status and authority to harass townspeople merely because they could. Why would they, when they worked for a king who let them do as they would with no rules? Although she was disgusted, she knew how a revolt of the poorly equipped people would end in bloodshed.

She tried to think of something to help her friends, wishing she knew of a memory wiping spell or some sort of manipulation spell to convince them that they had the wrong people in custody. During her musings, Hawk’s Eye glanced around and spotted her. Their eyes connected and she felt his relief from across the road separating them. She was safe? Good. She needed to stay that way.

Hawk discreetly whistled and that brought the Widow’s attention onto him. She followed the line of sight her lover drew with his eyes and settled on Red, partially obscured from view or potential capture. Red was, once again, the sole survivor of brutal violence imposed on her by King Lysias. Although they weren’t dead right then, there was the possibility that they soon might be. So, Widow locked eyes with Red and mouthed to her the orders she needed to follow and nothing else mattered: run.

_Run? But where to?_

Red desperately skimmed her brain for a game plan, wishing that Vis was here to help her. There was only one thing she could think of that might help and that didn’t include hiding. Her mind jumped to Solstice and Captain, somewhere out there in the outside world. The Captain and Solstice’s last correspondence from a week ago detailed their location and how they were returning at once. She needed to intercept them and warn them of the dangers of charging into the castle of Lysias with full force as their friends were stuck in the crosshairs. Without looking back, Red sprinted toward the palace gates and called for an invisible cloak to shroud her from the guards’ eyes and vanished from sight, slipping through the gates undetected.

She refused to let Midgard lose its one chance to survive.

* * *

Sitting around a freshly made campfire of their transient campsite, Helena and the Captain unwound after a lengthy day of travel. There was some solace in the journey back as the route was shorter and more straightforward, not needing any of the painful detours that brought them into contact with trouble. They were on their way back to Midgard, ready to defeat King Lysias once and for all with Lightbringer and Solstice’s blessing in Helena, the bearer of the blade.

Helena sat at the foot of the fire with Lightbringer stretched across her lap and unsheathed, admiring the glow of the blade under the light of the fire. The magic tint of gold bathed Helena’s features in the softness of sunshine radiating from the heavenly metal of the falling star. Unlike anything else she felt in this world, Lightbringer radiated power that threatened to turn her insides to mush.

“You seem distracted. Penny for your thoughts?” The Captain inquired when he sat beside Helena, leaving enough room for her to hold the sword safely. Helena sheathed the sword and rested it on her bedroll, opening the space back to the Captain. She sighed softly, trying to determine whether what she felt sounded insane or not. 

“The creature we fought for Lightbringer. I can’t get its final words out of my mind and I realized something. He whispered goodbye to his queen as he looked at me.” Helena remarked quietly, releasing the burden accumulating on her shoulders into the world. Her father always told her that holding onto things added weights to one’s soul and the more weight on a soul, the easier it drowned in hell and high waters.

“He?” The Captain inquired, seemingly confused by the pronoun shift. Helena rubbed her hands together close to the fire, mustering some warmth into them. She rubbed at her tired eyes and felt the ache in her bones, not much different than the one on her soul.

“The creature was Ser Lightwood, or what was left of him. He was Queen Solstice’s husband and a powerful mage. He tragically died before her on the battlefield and he must’ve cast a spell so that he reunited them in death. He would guard her final resting place against pillaging and protected her, even after their life was over.” Helena explained and fiddled with the ends of her messy braid, needing something to do with her hands to quell the anxious thoughts. Death, such a raw topic as of late. “I realized that, by defeating him, I set him at peace after all those years he spent watching over his wife’s resting place. He can rest, knowing that someone worthy carries the favor of his Solstice.”

“That’s really deep,” The Captain murmured while staring into the fire, taking Helena’s statement in its entirety. She made a touching point and the Captain hoped that if the creature had once been Ser Lightwood, that he found some semblance of peace after all this time.

“I think there is something noble, borderline romantic about the promise of forever like that. A love like that, one that transcends ages, is special. Back in the real world, I find myself confronted by a ticking clock telling me that I need to find this person I’m searching for now and tie myself to the idea of forever with someone. But I don’t want a temporary or fleeting love to act as a placeholder. I want something built for an eternity with someone who I can open my heart to. Someone who wishes to know me in my most vulnerable state, who lets me into their vulnerabilities, and we trust each other wholeheartedly. Listen to me, droning on like a romantic,” Helena blushed and looked down at her lap, wondering why she let her tongue get ahead of her again. “Do you have someone special, Captain?”

“Me? No, I-” The Captain started, but abruptly cut himself off. He didn’t have anyone he considered special, for a while. But who’s to say that hadn’t changed or when that information needed to come out in full. He swallowed thickly, “Did you mean what you said about being vulnerable?”

“Yeah, I did.” Helena tilted her head to the side and watched him, fighting back against what appeared to be a smile; there was almost amusement there. Just what was he up to with that smile of his or the way he kept glancing over at her?

“Well, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. You know that the Captain isn’t my real name, right? That none of the names of the others are their real names?” The Captain asked, unsure if she guessed that or not. She embraced it with such conviction when they first met and never asked for another name to call him by other than ‘Captain’.

I figured they were, but I never knew for sure.” Helena admitted shyly, knowing she thought about that more often than she’d ever admit. She grew so accustomed to speaking of them with their aliases, that those felt natural to her. However, she would be lying if she said she didn’t want to know his real name.

“We made names to protect our identities so we could live amongst the townspeople. What you said about vulnerability and trust- Let’s say that I think you’ve earned more than my trust for saving my life over and over during this whole adventure. You, to me, are on the same level as any member of the Resistance. So, here it is: my name is Steven Grant Rogers, but all my friends call me Steve.” The Captain revealed and Helena glanced down at the medallion that he gifted her a while back. She recalled the engraving of a set of initials and understood what they meant. SGR for Steven Grant Rogers. She smiled softly and glanced at Steve, who awaited her response with some anticipation.

“Nice to meet you, Steve. I’m Helena Nepheros,” Helena remarked, holding her hand out toward him. She thought their hasty first meeting deserved a do-over since she snuck into the backroom of Stark Tavern, ambushed him with the information he needed, and the two of them shimmied together in a cramped space to dodge palace guards looking for her. Steve shook his head, but his smile told her that he enjoyed her antics. His warm, calloused hand enveloped hers in a friendly shake, getting that do-over they deserved. Their hands parted ways and dropped into the laps of their respective owners. 

Their journey together was ending, but a question remained: what came after King Lysias’ reign of corruption came to an end?

Helena understood that she found Midgard for a reason as the world needed her to rescue it from the darkness plaguing the land. But would Midgard still need her around once she served her purpose or would this fantastical place exile her back to the world from which she came? The thought of her leaving Midgard and returning to the waking world forevermore filled her with unspeakable, pain-inducing dread. Staring at Steve, her Captain, and thinking about the other members of the Resistance who she corresponded with through the letters, she realized that she didn’t want to leave.

“Helena, are you alright?” Steve inquired concernedly and Helena felt him raise his hand to her cheek, brushing his thumb against her face. His touch came into contact with something warm and went, which Helena recognized to be a tear. She was crying. The thought of leaving distressed her greatly to move her to tears. Perhaps she saw this place as a connection she had to her late father or maybe she understood that her companion in Steve made Midgard a place she wanted to be a part of? Regardless of the reason, she prayed that she never had to leave.

“I- Steve,” Helena stammered and she, keeping his hand pressed up against her cheek with her hand resting atop, scooted closer to him. The minimization of the space between them hardly slipped past Steve’s notice and he felt the breath in his chest catch. In the light of the fire, he stared deep into the blue of Helena’s eyes and lost himself in captivation. The lateness of the hour swept something melancholy into the air. Helena shook her head, fearing she might sound foolish, but Steve’s intent attention focused on her prompted her to say what she needed to. “I am afraid that, when all this is over, I’ll never see you again. I don’t want that to happen.”

“I don’t want that to happen either,” Steve remarked and something between the two of them shifted, nothing seismic or world-shattering. More of the pieces gently clicking into place that prompted Helena to close her eyes and let herself be drawn in. Steve studied the bravest companion he had known and felt his eyes drop down to where her lips waited, unable to look away. However, the desires between never came to fruition as a shadowy figure stumbled through the trees and onto their makeshift camp for the evening.

“Captain! Solstice!” Wanda exclaimed when she spotted the two of them, sitting by the fire. Her relief overwhelmed her to find them and the exhaustion came not far behind. She missed the way Helena and Steve sprung back from each other like they burned themselves, both spooked like wild animals and nervously glancing from each other to Wanda.

“Wanda? What are you doing here? Where are the others?” Steve questioned, the moment between him and Helena severed by Wanda’s presence. The firelight cast shadows across her face but neither Steve nor Helena missed the haunted look in her eyes. Wanda stumbled forward, having run as far as her legs might carry her through the woods. She stuck to the path and what she remembered from the last letter to guide her. She did rely on some tracking spells to bring her face to face with them.

“I came to warn you. Palace guards arrested them and dragged them to the palace. I was running late for a meeting, which is why I escaped. We need to save them.” Wanda explained through gasps for air to soothe her burning lungs. The atmosphere between Steve, Helena, and Wanda chilled as Steve and Helena scrambled up from their seated position by the fire.

“Lysias has gone too far,” Steve growled, and he turned to Helena who saw there was more than anger in his eyes. There was fear and pain and guilt; Steve thought himself responsible for leaving his friends behind and potentially to the same fate as Peggy. She refused to let him fret over his friends and she would shrug off the exhaustion

“-And we’ll stop him,” Helena interjected and she grabbed Lightbringer, handing it to Wanda and watching her eyes widened at the sight of the blessed sword. Helena and Steve frantically packed their belongings, snuffed out the fire, and retrieved Lightbringer from Wanda. The three raced down the darkened road through the shadows of the Red Ash Wilds and under the cover of moonlight. Toward the castle, they ran with no time to lose.


	4. Darkness Before the Dawn

The stakes for Helena and Steve were newly increased and hunkering down on their shoulders while they followed Wanda back to Midgard. The revelation that the other Resistance members were captives of King Lysias put the image of a ticking clock into the trio’s minds, a foreboding omen that their fellow fighters had a dwindling time to survive. Breaching the castle was no walk in the park, but none of the warriors seemed daunted by the prospect of danger inevitably awaiting them within those four imposing walls, for they held loyalty to the mission. Besides, Steve and Wanda had an axe to grind with King Lysias while Helena considered her efforts as finishing her father’s life work. All three were motivated to end this war between the darkness and the people of Midgard, once and for all.

During the expedited race back to Midgard, Helena felt herself fading and cursed aloud at the horrid timing. She never wanted to take a day off work and hated lying, but she found herself faced with a choice. Helena, begrudgingly, chose to lie when she woke up. She fumbled with her phone while half-asleep and dialed the number of her direct supervisor, fumbling through an apology and a remark that she wouldn’t make it in to work as she needed a sick day. She barely waited for the approval and well-meaning wishes to end before she dropped the phone beside her and drifted back to sleep, returning back to Midgard.

“You okay?” Wanda inquired when Helena flickered back, and Steve passed her Lightbringer, which he held onto upon her disappearance. He knew, with confidence, that she would return during this crucial time. She hadn’t been privy to Helena’s disappearing act throughout the adventure while Steve seemed entirely unfazed by it. The air still held the strange electricity that she felt at the campfire before Wanda’s arrival, and a small voice, lost among the sea of discontent, wondered if Steve felt the same thing.

“Fine. Just needed to deal with some things. Nothing to worry about,” Helena promised, and she adjusted the strap of Lightbringer across her back. Since taking the sword, she opted to beg Steve for a few lessons. During these lessons, she and Steve realized that she held a natural aptitude for the sword. However, the encounters with animals that posed a threat to them and the occasional highway bandit, the spirit of Solstice took over and Helena became a force to be reckoned with. After some theorization, Steve suggested that the soul of Solstice must rest within the physical confines of Lightbringer and that her presence activated when danger approached. Whatever the case might be, arming Helena with a sword and magic increased her power. Lysias had no idea what she was capable of.

“Let’s continue,” Steve declared, and the two women nodded, resuming their frantic pace along the road and knowing that the sun should’ve started to break through the sky. However, there seemed to be nothing short of a looming and endless darkness hanging over them. Perhaps the natural world could sense the danger ahead or that something was amiss, reflecting the uncertainty in the pitch blackness of the night. Wanda illuminated the way for the trio through flames dancing down her forearms from her palms and strong enough to cover them from all sides. The Red Ash Wilds at night still frightened Helena, which sounded so stupid in the grand scheme of things, but she couldn’t shake the chills paralyzing her thoughts.

Eventually, they reached the gates outside Midgard to find them open—much to their surprise. No guards in sight as a closer examination revealed, and Helena couldn’t help the warning siren that blared into her mind that this was a trap. It appeared the same thought crossed Steve and Wanda’s minds from the way they exchanged knowing glances with each other and then her. All three understood they were walking into a trap, but the lives of their friends and their end goal mattered more. There was no time to be selfish and run away in the interest of self-preservation anymore, and for them, there never was.

“Proceed with caution,” Helena whispered when they passed through the gateway to her companions, and she tightened her grip on Lightbringer’s hilt. Together, she and Steve and Wanda entered the deserted town with weapons drawn and guard up. Eyes searched through the streets for danger lurking in the shadow of alleyways or around every corner while making a slow advance toward the castle, looming in the near distance and the epicenter of the swirling black clouds overhead. All the signs pointed to a storm brewing, and yet, all three knew there would be no rain or thunder or lightning. Only the storm of war and blood awaited them in the castle of King Lysias.

Every second trickled by like an eternity through the ominous march toward an inevitable fight, the unease felt worsened by the emptiness of the town. There were no lights, no stragglers sprinting for cover, not even the ambient noise of livestock or non-human inhabitants of the city. Almost like they vanished overnight, the empty streets and unnatural stillness reeked of foul play at work.

Soon enough, the trio was crossing the open drawbridge from the town and into the massive, stone walls of Lanchester Castle, named for the king who succeeded Queen Solstice and her once close friend. The invitation for them to enter undeterred screamed with an urgent warning for the adventurers to turn, flee, and never return for danger laid in wait. However, they pressed on with no other choice; escaping wasn’t an option.

The emptiness of the once splendid, alive castle marked another failure of the people to rise up and fight back early on when the kingdom settled toward a trend of downward decline. Instead, too many buried their heads in the sand and hoped things would improve, but that improvement never came.

Down the twisting halls and up the winding stairs that led them into the heart of Lanchester, where the throne room allegedly was. Call it intuition, but Steve assumed the seat of Lysias’ power would be where he wanted the final battle as a reminder of his advantage over the heroes. Ever the dramatic, before the brainwashing on behalf of a malevolent demon hellbent on destroying the lives of those in Midgard. Steve, Helena, and Wanda rounded the final corner standing between them and where they assumed the throne room laid, which was the dead center of the castle, but they scrambled back around the corner with fear. Two mirroring formations of elite and armored guards lined the walls adjacent from the grandiose double doors that stood between the adventurers and the throne room. The guards, unblinking and still like a marble statue, made no reference to them being alive or on the lookout for the arrival of the potential usurpers.

“Shit,” Helena cursed and that, out of all the signs, forewarned of nothing but trouble should they proceed. But it was too late now. Steve nodded, agreeing with her assessment of the situation. Shit was right. The guards probably saw them, and yet, no movement came from around the corner. Was Lysias that confident in his victory that he would let them walk into his chambers without threat or attempt to stop them?

“You know what this means,” Steve said while unsheathing his sword from the custom leather sheath, and that prompted Helena to do the same with Lightbringer. Releasing the blade from the enchanted holster awakened the might of Solstice’s spirit, and Helena heard the faintest whisper of a feminine voice caress her ear. Her eyes connected with Steve, and she knew they were walking into a trap, but the words couldn’t wiggle their way out of the lump in her throat. So, she remained mute. Steve pressed his back flat against the wall and inched toward the edge, glancing at his companions in Wanda and Helena. “We are going to fight our way in.”

* * *

Inside the throne room, “Lysias” lounged on the throne and examined a gold coin, out of sheer boredom. Whether or not Lysias’ soul controlled the vessel of flesh sitting upon the throne remained a debate for the imprisoned Resistance members, lined up together, and chained off to the side. “Lysias” brought them out on display for their “special guests,” who he anticipated should arrive at any given hour to the castle of horrors, willingly racing into his meticulous trap.

His seer predicted that the Captain and his wench in Gryphon’s daughter, whose name he still didn’t know, discovered the resting place of Solstice’s greatest treasure. “Lysias” nearly snarled aloud merely thinking of his sworn enemy who, even after eons dead, still thwarted his plans for greatness. He almost regretted the decision to off the elderly seer when his use ran out, _almost_.

Off to the side, the Man of Iron growled through the gag that he found shoved in his mouth along with Falcon and Hawk’s Eye as the chattier of the bunch since their commentary grated on “Lysias’” patience. “Lysias” overheard the indignant reactions from the de-facto leader acting in the Captain’s stead, which filled him with immense pleasure to watch them squirm in their discomfort and anger. He relished their anger, leeched off it to sustain his power.

“Go on, grumble and groan. Your dissatisfaction shall not save you and neither you’re your friends you assume are coming to your rescue. The Resistance shall end once and for all. No more avenging the common man’s grievances with me as I am a superior being who answers to no man.” He taunted, adopting the well-known smirk of the king despite being a demon infesting a sack of rotting flesh underneath the strain of the dark magic. “See, I’ve found mortals to be easily-manipulated beasts. Appeal to their sense of self-preservation and greed and you make them dance like marionette dolls without them realizing how pathetically they bend for the wills of a far superior master-” Midway through “Lysias’” monologue to borderline of self-aggrandizement and avarice, which came through in dramatic irony to the Resistance, the double doors flew open with a shattering scream as a guard enveloped in red came flying through and crashing at the foot of the dais where the throne rested. Steve and Helena sprinted through the smithereens where a door once stood and Wanda floated in behind them, ablaze in her red-hot rage. 

“I heard you were looking for us. Sorry to keep you waiting,” Steve sneered and clicked the switch of his left gauntlet down, spurring a shield to form from the metal. These were his most dangerous weapon and a gift from the late leaders of the Resistance, which made the possibility of beating Lysias down to a pulp with them that much more satisfying.

“Ah, the Captain. Who would expect that you might grace us with your presence? Personally, I find the prospect of placing a face to the name of the treasonous bastard riling up my subjects with your agenda and propaganda quite appealing. I shall know you—the man who despises me more than he values his life—before crushing you under my boot like the worthless ant you really are,” “Lysias” mocked Steve from where he slouched on the throne, but he did straighten his posture when raking his eyes over Helena standing beside Steve. So, this was Gryphon’s offspring, who continued her father’s pesky habit of foiling his plans. “And your companion with the accursed sword she carries must be Gryphon’s wretched daughter. I didn’t expect you, wench, and that was my mistake—one I will make certain shall never happen again.”

“Call me Solstice,” Helena interjected, and she raised Lightbringer in a gesture she saw Steve do many times, mirroring his powerful stance and steeled glare as sharp as the blade. Her implication of a fight was no threat; it was a _promise_. “Lysias” dared to laugh at her, but his amusement swiftly ended when Wanda, shaking from anger at seeing the monster who slaughtered her whole family, used her powers to slash the shackles holding back the other members of the Resistance. Flexing their newly free hands, “Lysias” realized that he might be outnumbered eight to one.

“Guards! Attack!” “Lysias” bellowed, and upon his command, the guards lined outside the throne room came rushing in to detain the newly freed Resistance and the upstarts in Helena and Steve. However, the Resistance found themselves unwilling to go without a fight and prepared to hold the line against the guards to give Steve and Helena the chance to fight “Lysias.”

“We’ll handle the guards. You take out the big guy!” The Man of Iron declared to Helena and Steve, who glanced between each other and nodded. The Resistance members grabbed improvised weapons from around the room or prepared to brawl with bare fists alone, rushing toward the incoming guards in a chorus of battle cries. The sight of watching Falcon bash a guard overhead with a candelabra he seized from the corner of the room or seeing the Widow choke a guard to death with the leftover chain of her shackles while kicking another squarely in the gut would almost become comical in another circumstance.

Steve and Helena raised their swords together and whirled on “Lysias,” watching his eyes glow red and his body break out in the presence of black veins stretching across his skin. So, the worms wanted a battle? He would drag their bloodied corpses through the city when he emerged the victor once and for all.

“Come now, weaklings. Show me your worst, for I have survived the eons while warriors of the light perished before I. I am undefeatable.” “Lysias” taunted when rising from his throne of lies, flexing his hand to summon his double-bladed greataxe for a fight. He narrowed his lifeless eyes at Steve and Helena; they wished for war and he would bring them one.

Steve advanced forward without fear, only malice meant for the king who stole from the Midgardian people. “Lysias” gripped his greataxe and an animalistic growl greeted Steve’s approach. Helena, although armed with a sword, stayed toward the back of the conflict and tucked Lightbringer away. She called out to her magic and channeled the energy around her, abundant throughout the room, fashioning herself into a magical nightmare.

“Lysias” cleaved the double-bladed axe recklessly and Steve, a man who had seen battle before, deftly dodged underneath the clumsy swing. He rolled onto his feet and rammed “Lysias” in the back with his shield. Before “Lysias” could whirl around and engage with the Captain, Steve was already too far out and planning to make the mad king give chase. Meanwhile, Helena lifted her palms up and felt the amulet around her neck flare up with energy.

She hoped to even the playing field.

From her palms, highly concentrated flames fashioned into arrows and soared out in an unyielding arc of death. Most of the arrows pierced through the finery worn by “Lysias” and pierced the skin of his back in a burning sensation. “Lysias” bellowed and reached back to rip one of the arrows from his vulnerable back and found himself under attack by Steve, using the opportunity to strike.

Helena prepared for another round of magic and she pushed herself to concentrate on the magic thrumming in the air. She watched Steve trade blow after blow with “Lysias,” a match between nearly equal warriors. Solstice, from within Lightbringer, demanded Helena release her and join the sword fight to make it two against one. Unconvinced by her personal skills with the sword, she refused to jeopardize the strides against the darkness by attempting to get into the fray. She would mediate between the two sides with magic.

Her goal was to harm, inconvenience, and distract “Lysias” while Steve unloaded the heavy hitting, which included him socking “Lysias” square in the jaw with a crack loud enough to shake the castle down to the foundational structure. Helena alternated between fire, light, and even lightning to gain Steve the upper hand. However, she recalled a spell she was dying to try out.

Helena raised her hands out and let them charge with energy, only to slap them together in the middle and create a sonic wave of force radiating speedily toward “Lysias.” As expected, the pressure bowled him over and that allowed Steve to charge into the fray. A quick glance toward the Resistance showed their scuffle against the double dozen guards in a slow win for the good guys as there were enough of them to hold their own and no guards dared to get past the line and attack Helena standing in the middle of all the chaos.

However, Helena learned rather quickly why you never look away as a pained groan snapped her head back to see Steve, newly disarmed, and flying into the throne. His back hit the edge and he landed in an undignified heap at the base of the throne and on the stone dais. “Lysias” menacingly thundered toward Steve and Helena, enraged by the sight, refused to let him get close. She gave in to the commands of Solstice and unsheathed Lightbringer, which echoed across the throne room’s sanctified walls. Before “Lysias” chose to investigate, she sprinted toward him at full speed and launched herself into the air. Helena gripped onto his back between her legs and raised Lightbringer, bringing it crashing down between his shoulder blades. “Lysias” roared and his thunderous voice shook the throne room, which intensified when Helena removed the blade after giving it a good twist. The move was personal.

“Lysias” reached behind him and grabbed Helena, throwing her to the ground. Helena coughed violently and she felt pain flare between her ribs that signaled something very wrong. “Lysias” refused to stop while he was ahead and swiftly kicked Helena in the abdomen, sending her body skittering across the floor. Her world lurched and she struggled to pull her head off the ground but did so enough to watch as “Lysias” picked Lightbringer off the ground from where it scattered out of her hands. He studied it for a moment and under his gaze, the blade bent from the dark energy infecting it until he snapped it in half with a resounding crunch. The room, rocked by a startled silence, left a void of silence for “Lysias” to chronicle his thoughts. This was the force meant to end his reign? Pathetic.

“There goes your precious Lightbringer. Whatever shall you do now to stop your inevitable demise, hmmm?” His laughter punctuated anger in Helena and she, staggering to get back onto her feet, posed a perfect target for his intended statement. “Lysias” held his hand out and channeled the dark energies of his master in one blow, prepared to kill the upstart where she stood. His aim wouldn’t ring true as Steve, recovering from his blows, sprinted between Helena and the blast with his shield blocking the way. The explosion hit, sending him flying backward into Helena and the two of them hitting the floor. “Lysias,” dissatisfied, would handle the Captain afterward but wanted to rid himself of this stupid girl. Tendrils of darkness wrapped around Helena’s legs and dragged her across the marble floors to where he stood ominously. He picked her up and held her off the ground by the hand, encircling her neck. Helena gagged and she grabbed at his hands, wrapped too tight around her neck. “Foolish girl, you thought you could defeat me. I have existed eons before you were even a thought or a speck within the universe. I shall be your demise. Find yourself thankful, I shall kill you before I touch your Captain.”

Those words sparked something in Helena. Thorough the fight, her powers felt just out of her reach and more like she was blindly stumbling through the dark. She stilled her frame and opened herself to be taken over, to let Solstice in. Doing that tinted her eyes the tell-tale of burning gold and wings sprouted out of her shoulder blades in a blaze of glory. Her hands gripping for freedom around her throat grew hot and the throne room filled with the odor of burnt flesh as “Lysias” screamed. He dropped Helena down and the skin where she touched was charred and marked up by the presence of her glowing hands. Curling her first, Helena formed the gauntlet spell she learned from her father’s journal and sucker-punched “Lysias” across the room, noting how he skidded to a halt when reaching the foot of his throne. Oh, how the tables have turned.

Walking across the room with all eyes drawn onto her, Helena heard a world of secrets racing through her mind in the voice of Solstice, deep and sonorous but rich like honey. She saw the many lives that the Queen touched with her blessing, including hers and her father’s. The blood coursing through her veins was not of mortal origin and never was she belonged to Solstice’s lineage. She was the first daughter from the Solstice line and her direct descendent.

Slammed against the throne he once sat on, “Lysias” felt rendered paralyzed and observed as Helena approached him with the broken lower half of Lightbringer gripped in her fist. He planned on making another comment on her rage, but she cut to the chase by impaling the jagged blade clean through his chest without warning.

“You- You-” “Lysias” gurgled through a mouthful of blood, but Helena refused to bat a lash for the monster masquerading as a man and she, without so much as a word or indication, cranked the blade to the side. Her lips pulled at the faintest smirk, but “Lysias” suspected that belonged to Solstice more than the mortal wench. He glanced down and watched his body melt into ashes, fluttering away on an unseen wind. The spirit form of Solstice dropped from around Helena, leaving her as she was, and the room drained of light compared to the brightness of when Solstice took over.

Exhausted but ultimately victorious, Helena turned around to address the Resistance and that was when she spotted Steve, still on the floor and struggling to get up or breathe. She inched closer and then, came the bloodied gash through his armor on his abdomen. The color drained from her face and she dropped the jagged remnant of Lightbringer.

“Steve!” Helena screamed and the others watched her sprint to his side, quickly assessing the wound. Gradually, the weapon that caused the injury—a sword made of smoke and shadows—revealed itself and she knew that the blow he shielded her from, the one meant for her, did this to him. No time for guilt or moping, she sprung into action and started applying pressure to the bleeding. She started panicking, “Help!”

Wanda skidded over to the two of them and stared with unhidden horror at the wound that went straight through Steve’s stomach. Her heart sank and she hung her head, knowing there would be nothing to save him. Steve was a dead man.

“Solstice, there is nothing we can do-” Wanda stammered but stopped when she found herself underneath the fierce, wild glare of Helena. There was nothing they could do? Bullshit! They existed in a realm of unparalleled magic and there was nothing they could do? Helena would not accept that as an answer.

“Don’t say that! There has to be a spell or something!” Helena interrupted and she started praying to her father, God, Solstice, fucking any divine power that might listen to her. She channeled the light into her hands and begged for a miracle. She felt the inklings of healing spirits reaching out to her, but a weak hand pulling on her elbow severed the connection. Helena glanced down to see Steve, his eyes half-closed and his lips unable to hold a grimace as he was in that much pain. She adjusted the angle of his body to ease some of the pain and that helped him to open his eyes further, blue striking blue with one side glossy and out of focus while the other brimmed with tears threatening to fall like rain.

“Helena, please listen to me,” Steve remarked, somewhat forcefully, and that stopped Helena’s frantic movements. Hurt spread across her face and Steve frowned, not wanting to cause her pain. He could see her on the verge of breaking, but she needed to know that she would be okay and that he was okay. He saved her life and she would go on to defeat Lysias, making the decision one he would do over and over again. He softened, hiding a small grimace when he wriggled and the blade through him gave some pain in return. He looked up at Helena after glancing at the other members of the Resistance with a look that spoke volumes. _Take care of her for me._ “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay. I won’t let you die. I can’t.” Helena declared, stunned that Steve would even think that! She knew that with Solstice inside of her and the magic she possessed in her ancestry, healing Steve and letting him live the life with the noted accolades of a hero he deserved. He needed to live so that he could ensure the vision of the original Resistance members came to fruition with a new Midgard, under new leadership. He could be that leader for the people, one who would be admired. He needed to live because Helena knew she would be lost without him there and she didn’t want to know a Midgard without the man who had become her closest companion during the months of questing.

“I don’t think you can save me from this one. At least, I think I evened out our tally,” Steve somehow managed a chuckle that turned into a hacking cough, but Helena felt her shock and panic blister with anger. He seriously thought she gave a shit about that stupid tally of who owed who?

“No, no, no! You weren’t supposed to die for me, Steve! Who gives a fuck about a stupid tally-” Helena tried to reason with him, but Steve seemed decided on his path of sacrifice. This was not the moment to be a hero with reckless abandon because Helena didn’t know if she could take him dying on her without at least trying to give him a second chance. The number of times they survived while on the road and looking for Solstice for this to be what defeated them made Helena’s heart clench jerkily.

“Helena, please promise me that you know this isn’t your fault,” Steve whispered, holding her face between the one hand he managed to lift although it was slick with blood—his blood. Helena held onto his hand and her lip quivered when the tears came rolling down her cheeks. She couldn’t fight with him or convince him to live; Steve resigned himself to his fate. Feeling the shattering sensation in her chest and her sudden inability to breathe amounted to the undeniable breaking of her heart.

“I’ll try- Please don’t go. I need you,” Helena gave one last effort to convince him to stay, feeling the spirits that surrounded her starting to vanish. Her mind screamed at her to save him, to determine his life worth living. Her body froze under Steve’s refusal to accept her help and his immediate resignation to dying. She could try to save him if he gave her the chance to-

“I- Stay strong, Helena,” Steve murmured, his voice sounding heavy and dropping off at the end and then, his body stilled and his hand against her cheek became limp against her touch. Helena gently set his hand down on the floor and her first instinct was to not let go. The other Resistance members watched the scene with devastating looks and tears of their own. One by one, they sank down to a knee to pay their respects to their fallen friend. Helena, however, felt her inhibitions come crashing down.

Her head rolled back and she let out the most pained, bloodcurdling scream into the desecrated throne room, littered with the bodies of men, a monster, and someone who deserved to be alive. She brayed like a wounded, heartbroken animal while her tears mixed with his blood smeared across her cheek. Nothing about this would ever be okay. She remained unmoving and howled in heartbrokenness, even long after Steve’s body calmly faded into the light and the last piece of him she would have, besides her memories, hung solemnly around her neck like a death sentence.

* * *

Helena bolted up in her bed, feeling violently ill and her stomach turning. Steven Grant Rogers died in her arms and she knew not what happened to those who existed in Midgard and met an untimely fate, but the painful knot that was her intestines cramped up when thinking he might be gone forever. She barely managed to roll onto her stomach and bury her face into her pillow before another scream vengefully clawed out of her throat. The tears came flooding and drowning her pillow in a series of hot, angry streaks of her grief.

Crushed by another loss of someone she grew to care for, Helena swore to herself then and there that she would never step foot in Midgard again. There was no Midgard without Steve.

As well-intentioned as her promise was, the possibility to cease sleep was a medical impossibility and therefore, she would return to Midgard when the sun dipped below the horizon. Helena would spend nearly two months, a little under the same time she knew Steve and the others, doing whatever she could to avoid Midgard.

Whether it was the old cold-water trick:

_Stumbling with a gasp while she pulled her head from the watery recesses, Helena recoiled from the sink, filled to the brim with freezing cold water. Her eyes opened to her damp-looking reflection in the mirror while she leaned against the counter of the tub and greedily sucked in air. Cold water was supposed to wake someone up or keep them awake, startled by the sensation of the cold. However, she only appeared to be wet and on the verge of a panic attack. Her arms shook while leaning against the sink’s edge and she considered another dive into the water._

_This was the third attempt to perfect the technique because, as much as this sucked, she refused to go back for another minute to Midgard. Her hurt was raw, painful and sharp to the touch like a jagged shard of glass. She roughly pulled the towel from the rack and dried her face from all the water. The cold-water method proved to be a mistake on her part, bringing up the memories of her rescue from near-drowning by Steve. Submerging her face into the water ended up counter-intuitive, which was disappointing. She sat on the floor, her back leaning up against the bathtub and she zoned out for what felt like a minute. She didn’t realize she caved into her exhaustion until it was too late._

Listening to loud music:

_Helena sat down on her couch with a pained grimace and her favorite headphones sitting on her head, trying her best not to squirm. Typically, she encouraged the use of classical music to relax her after a long day, but there would be no relaxing today. So, she chose a type of music on the far opposite of the spectrum to play: screamo._

_Barely five minutes past and she was beyond uncomfortable by the noise, wondering how this could be called music. She fiddled with the earphones and adjusted them several times with the hope of improving her plan, to no avail. She glanced around the room and tried to drown out the unpleasant way the death metal made her feel by noticing the small details of her apartment. However, the music grew a tad too much and she, unable to stomach another moment of it, cringed. She plucked the headphones off and threw them across the couch from her, compelled to get the offending noise as far away as possible._

Devouring caffeine by the gallon:

_Helena bounced her leg restlessly and felt her right eye start to twitch from all the tea she drowned herself in since that morning. She ran through the whole tin of green tea teabags, which encouraged her to run down to the store and grab more. She was on the couch and listening for the sound of the kettle when her eyes grew heavy._

_“No! I drank at least three to five pots of tea!” Helena mumbled as she dazedly got up and approached the kettle, which had yet to even grow warm on the stove. She rubbed at her eyes with the oversized sleeve of her shirt and knew that she wouldn’t stay awake long enough with tea on the way. She was approaching the twenty-seventh hour mark without sleep, but her body was failing her intended task of remaining awake. So, with much reluctance, she turned off the stove and pushed the kettle off to the side, slumping her way to the bedroom. She closed the door softly behind her with tears in her eyes and crawled into bed, upset with her lack of progress._

None of her attempts gained enough traction to keep her awake. So, Helena gave up and embraced the cruel reality that she would spend the rest of her life returning to a second world tainted by the pain of loss. The natural world wasn’t the same without her father and Midgard was not the same without Steve, driving Helena to the brink of madness and ire.

She spent her time in Midgard, seated at the bar of Stark Tavern and occasionally indulging in a drink from a sympathetic, extraordinarily kind Pepper. She never chastised Helena for taking up space at the bar or requesting a few drinks past “too many” or for starting to cry. Legend of her heroics spread throughout the land and many of Midgard’s citizens called for her to claim the throne as it technically belonged to her through birthright. However, a still-grieving Helena hardly considered the offer as one she desired. If anyone deserved to lead Midgard into better days was him, not her.

People whispered about the daughter of Gryphon and slayer of King Lysias, who sat forlornly at the bar of Stark Tavern and drowned her apparent sorrow in silence, and not all were harmless rumors. Many spun the tale of her bitter heartbreak at her lover’s demise during the final battle, which earned their whisperings Helena’s annoyance. She and Steve were not lovers—at least, they never got the chance to be. Steve was never far from her mind and she cared not to figure out what that meant.

Occasionally, Helena was visited by one of the others and they would spend time with her, as to make sure she wasn’t alone. Tony, Sam, Bucky, Natasha, Clint, and Wanda treated her like family and took care of her during her moments of grieving. It was not lost on them how torn up she was over the death of Steve; they all were lost without their leader. But it seemed their grief touched nowhere near the level of pain Helena carried, which introduced speculation that she and Steve forged a bond (likely not consummated) that stretched beyond the realm of platonic friendship. From all the Resistance, she leaned on Wanda the most and the two magic users bonded like long-lost sisters.

During one of Wanda’s visits, she insisted that Helena leave the bar and grab some fresh air to clear her mind. Helena gave some protest, half-hearted at best, but she saw no reason to deny Wanda’s request for a walk. She slipped on her oversized cloak, gifted to her by the others of the Resistance as it belonged to Steve, while Wanda paid her small tab with Pepper. The two women exited the bar and headed out into the town square, moving past the attention of strangers who craned their necks to glimpse at Helena, the second coming of Solstice.

Upon Helena’s request, she and Wanda ascended the battlements of the city’s wall, mainly to catch the view of the brilliant scarlet of the Red Ash Wilds that stretched out beyond the city as far as the eye could see. Together, Wanda and Helena seated themselves along the side of the wall to let their legs dangle over the side and sat in silence, save for the rustling of the leaves within the autumn breeze.

“There seems to be something on your mind today, Helena,” Wanda said after some time where the two lounged in silence. While Helena seemed at a strange impasse with the quiet, it unnerved Wanda somewhat. Through the grief, Helena became a different person—sullener and more withdrawn.

“I’ll give you one guess,” Helena mumbled, and Wanda knew that one guess was one too many. The same thing was on Helena’s mind since the day Lysias was defeated, and every day since then was a repeat of the same pain and aches: Steve.

“I know you miss him. I do too. The others do as well.” Wanda assured Helena, meaning to be sympathetic and show her that she and the others understood her pain regarding the loss. Hell, Steve was their close friend or a brother to many of them and the loss cut down to the core. But the others could see that he wanted to sacrifice for the greater good, except Helena.

“Yes, but it goes beyond that, Wanda. I finally accepted the painful truth about Steve and me,” Helena remarked sharply, not wanting to hear the spiel about how they all missed him too. They might have known him before her, but that didn’t permit them to minimize her suffering and her loss felt by Steve’s tragic death. Growing agitated with Wanda and a bit with herself, Helena found herself resorting to picking at her nails and fidgeting to ease her discontent. She shook her head and her loose waves covered her face from view, providing her privacy if she desired to cry. “I had feelings for him, not quite love but something more than a crush as that sounds so juvenile. I watched the man who I grew to care for, unlike any other man in my past or present, die in my arms. How does that not fuck you up?”

“I’m sorry, Helena. I jumped to conclusions with what you wished to say.” Wanda apologized, which earned her a gruff nod from Helena. She was not in the state to be holding grudges against the others since none of them were at fault for what happened. “I wish I had answers for you about why or some way to bring him back to you. I would in a heartbeat! I think that… Helena- Helena!” Wanda’s voice faded in and out while the world around Helena blurred, knowing the waking world’s calling card by then. Helena reluctantly allowed herself to be taken back to where she belonged, falling down into the spiral of nothingness until her eyes opened. She stared up at her ceiling and sighed, feeling kind of numb. Today was her day off and as much as she would rather wrap herself up in blankets and mope around her apartment, her refrigerator was out of food and her bank account would not take kindly to her starting a habit of takeout. She, with great reluctance, pulled herself from the bed and into the bathroom to tidy herself up somewhat. There laid little interest in dolling herself up, but not looking like she dragged herself from a coffin after a week seemed a respectable decision.

She brushed her hair, teeth, and washed her face. She hardly had enough energy to change her clothes or use makeup to cover up the dark bags hanging under her eyes. She piled her keys, wallet, and reading glasses into her old tote bag and headed out of her apartment for the convenience store a four-block walk from there. Stepping into the sun, she recoiled a little under the brightness compared to the darkness of her room but moved on her way, not in the mood to deal with people or be in the same vicinity as them. She walked along the busy streets until she spotted a crosswalk up ahead at a no-cross light. She sighed, but something in the crowd caught her eye—a patch of blond hair styled familiarly. Helena felt her heartbeat race before she shook her head, dismissing the thought that Steve Rogers was standing around ten feet ahead of her.

Then, the face of the stranger turned profile and the tote bag nearly slipped from her hand out of shock. She walked toward him, almost in a daze. She jostled past several people with a shoulder check, which earned her some glares. She needed to know if she was imagining things or was he really there.

“Steve? Steven Grant Rogers!” Helena exclaimed aloud, drawing some perplexed looks from people walking beside her, but she could hardly care less about that. She felt so many emotions at that given moment, torn between wanting to burst into tears or tempted to strangle him for being reckless and dying on her. Upon hearing his full name, Steve glanced around through the busy street for a familiar face. Helena beelined toward him and when a gaggle of people obscuring her moved to the side, Steve caught a glance of the brunette. He felt his breath vanish from him and eliciting a wheezing gasp to see Helena, in the flesh and speeding through the crowd like a woman with nothing to lose. She approached him with tears in her eyes and, without saying a word, she threw herself into his waiting arms. Her face buried in his shoulder, she let herself freely cry when she confirmed that he was standing there and not a figment of her hopeful imagination. Steve wrapped his arms around her and cradled her to his chest, softly whispering to her as her shoulders were trembling violently. The world around them went about its business with people muttering and moving around the couple (they had places to be!) while Steve and Helena had the reunion neither thought was possible.

“Helena, it’s really you,” Steve seemed beside himself, but Helena could hardly stand another moment in suspense and she crashed her lips against his. Steve, hardly protesting the move, made sure to demonstrate his enthusiastic reciprocation by… kissing her back. The two of them ignored the world around them or the people shooting them dirty looks; they were too busy enjoying their reunion. He buried his fingers in her hair and pulled her closer than close, leaving not the faintest inkling of space unoccupied. She tasted of mint and strawberries—the combination invigorating to his muddled senses and telling him that this was real. This was no dream or wishful thinking to understand that Helena was there. Eventually, the need for air trumped the mutual desire of Helena and Steve to convey all the things left unspoken on that fateful day of Steve’s demise. It appeared that his death only affected Midgard and not the real world, which opened a whole new can of worms for Helena. She planned to deal with those later and have a proper sit-down to work out what happened with Steve, but talk could wait.

Steve, on the other hand, seemed determined to find out what transpired in the aftermath of the final battle. He knew Lysias met his demise by Helena’s hand and that all his friends survived from what hazy memories of his death stayed with it. Frankly, he mostly remembered Helena crying and that burned into his mind, haunted his nightmares for the past few months, and gnawed away at him. He knew she lost her father not long before and he realized that losing someone else in such quick succession after might pain her. He regretted causing her pain, but he would never regret protecting her, even at the expense of his second life. “Tell me what happened with Midgard. Are things alright now?”

“That can wait,” Helena promised him, and she cupped one of Steve’s cheeks with her hand. Steve’s eyes caught on the medallion resting around her neck and he couldn’t help the grin that came with knowing she held onto it like promised. Helena stroked his cheek with her thumb, “Can you do one thing for me? Shut up and kiss me, Captain.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Not needing any other instructions, Steve suppressed a chuckle at Helena’s blunt reaction and their lips connected again in the middle of the busy street. They might have met through the hand of chance and through their dreams, but this moment was grounded in the reality of their potential future together. No longer would their love hide in the dark and the presence of dreams; they had the potential to build something greater. And, with some luck, Helena might figure out how to restore Steve back to Midgard so that he and she could give the people what they wanted: a new dawn of leadership.


End file.
